Reborn at Hogwarts
by phoenixyfriend
Summary: Honestly, none of them expected the dimension to collapse, other than Hidan. None of them expected to be reborn, with memories fully intact, in a different dimension. None of them expected to learn magic in this new world. None of them expected anything that happened. But it did.
1. Prologue: Reborn

**A/N- READ THIS NOTE. The 'theories of realities' that are described here are the principles that most of my stories work on, as is the idea of the three gods that run the worlds. Nominally, each of my fanfictions so far takes place in its own universe.**

**ALSO! Some of my Author's Notes will contain information that may have only applied to that chapter when it was published. HOWEVER. The Author's Notes will also often contain information that cannot be presented in the story proper. Treat an Author's Note as you would an SBS in One Piece, or as information from a Databook in any other series. If you wish, I will be happy to do an actual question and answer corner to make it a bit more structured.**

**WARNING: Ascended Extras: Blaise Zabini and Jashin. Yes, Jashin is an ascended extra.**

**Don't take this story seriously. It's humor. It's parody. It's more structured and less of an overall joke compared to my other stories, but it's still not something that I want people to look at and try to pick apart for not following 'the rules.'**

o.o.o.o.o

"We're doing it my way this time." Jashin said. "You've each had a chance to try your own solutions to the problem, and look where that got us. I want to call in outside help."

Kami scoffed at him. "Outside help? You mean those ridiculous 'agents' that you used to skive off your duties to go drinking with all the time. I don't think I can actually call them _help_, considering how your paperwork gets backed up that way."

Jashin's eyes narrowed at his fellow. "And yet, _Kami-chan_, you are the only one of us three that cannot control the violence of her subjects, and does not even garner their belief in her own existence."

"How dare you—?!"

"That is out of line, Jashin-dono." Shinigami interfered. "And Kami, you really could have done better. I have no problem admitting that my plan did not pan out as well as I'd hoped either. We've had this conversation before, so let us move on."

Silence reigned for several more seconds.

"I get to choose the solution. You two already f***ed it up twice without my interference." Jashin said.

"Fine. I don't even care anymore, anyway."

"Very well."

"I'm calling Agent Diamond."

o.o.o.o.o

A dimension had been destroyed.

Now, there is a difference between a world, a dimension, a plane of existence, a universe, and so forth.

There are a number of levels to reality. The innermost difference is the planes of existence: the realms of the living, the dead, and so forth. The next level out is the worlds, which is where multiple copies of the world exist simultaneously next to each other with minor changes, like split timelines (e.g. a normal Naruto timeline, a female Naruto timeline, an evil Naruto timeline, etcetera). The worlds each have a primary mode (i.e. normal Naruto), though, and there usually is only one world in each dimension, so this level is often disregarded. The next level is the dimensions, where there are different worlds, like stories, such as Naruto, Harry Potter, and so on. Then there is the level of the Universes, where one of those systems just describes exists. There are few entities that can cross between Universes, or even just communicate across them.

The Phoenix Corporation is filled with such beings. Some of them are just as stoic and strict as you would expect of people that police reality, but some are far less so. One of the 'less so' members, Agent Diamond, was the one that kick-started the events that would begin this story.

Agent Diamond, as she is most often referred to as, had power over blood and connections to demons. It was because of this that a ring of her own blood allowed her to create instantaneous portals to any area that housed large numbers of demons. Of course, it only took her a few seconds longer to simply use the technology granted to her by her superiors to create a portal to almost anywhere in reality, but that is information for another time.

In the dimension that houses Naruto, in the particular universe that this story takes place in, there is but one world, with three planes. There is the plane of the dead, the plane of the living, and the plane of the demonic. The plane of the dead is run by the Shinigami, who takes on the visage of a man in his forties or fifties in a business suit, though he used to switch to his better known visage when he visited the Kami's realm attempting to scare whomever he can. The realm of the living is run by Kami, who is visually a beautiful but strict looking woman, presumably in her twenties or thirties, with blonde hair and classical Grecian clothing, as is usually seen on statues of Aphrodite or other such goddesses. The realm of demons is run by Jashin, who prefers to look like a boy in his late teens, complete with blue hair, an open Hawaiian shirt, khaki cargo shorts, and a surfboard keychain.

Surf's up, dudes.

Now, Jashin and Agent Diamond are on pretty good terms. They have a similarly morbid and childish sense of humor, and Jashin prides himself as being the only one of the three gods that doesn't take his or her self too seriously and prefers joking around to doing paperwork. He loves the fact that he's also the only one that doesn't give a rat's fart what people care about him, other than his own worshippers. He doesn't control the demons that decide to move from one realm to the other unless they begin to cause trouble in the flow of souls from the plane of the living to the plane of the dead, which has only rarely happened. The Juubi was technically his most powerful subordinate at one time, but it was rebellious and rarely followed orders. He was happy to have nine almost as powerful ones come about as a result of its destruction, and hoped that they would eventually come home.

They never did.

Now, upon the destruction of the entire dimension that housed the plane that he'd run, he was—as were Kami and Shinigami, though they didn't put in nearly as much effort or interest—making a deal with a woman who was under orders from some of the most powerful people in all the universes. The woman herself was immortal, not tied down to any one universe since the day that her own was wholly destroyed.

They made a deal, sending key players to other dimensions, choosing ones which had no true gods to rule them, to be reborn. Jashin was especially interested in the dimension that would be reserved for the Akatsuki, giving all of them, especially his dear Hidan, the last and most faithful of his followers, a second chance. They would be told, of course, that this second chance was a chance to redeem themselves.

Kami, Shinigami, and Jashin would all spread their powers over them, would be given more power and more territory by the members of the Phoenix Corporation. Jashin was the most… fascinated, should I say, because he was always the most interested in what his followers did, not just how much they cared for their gods.

A redheaded girl that had once been barely toeing the line with sanity watched as the laidback god arranged for the rebirth of some dozen or so souls, and she carried three in created bodies when hosts could not be found for them. Jashin spoke with them, one by one before sending them on, and even tolerated it—almost giddily, Diamond noticed—when Hidan practically cried with happiness and hugged the god's neck, enormous hundred foot being that said god was. She even had, due to the time and space modification powers bestowed upon her associate, Agent Moonstone, their favored weapons, one of which had a soul of her own that needed to be dealt with, and deal with the her Diamond did.

o.o.o.o.o

In an orphanage in Surrey, a baby that was almost completely blue, from his hair to his skin to his eyes, was handed over to a caretaker that was horrified upon hearing that the babe was reportedly found in a box on a park bench. Presumably, the tearful redhead that found the box told her, he'd been left there because of his birth defects, by parents that were ashamed to have such a child. The young woman only asked to be allowed to name the poor boy, which the caretaker hurriedly agreed to. Berilo, the young woman chose, a Greek name that meant blue-green, she told the caretaker. The caretaker nodded, asking if there was a last name to go with it. The young woman thought for a few moments, and finally suggested Krahsson, spelling the entire name out and saying that it did have a meaning, and that hopefully the boy would figure it out with time. She left, pleading the caretaker to keep the child out of the news, and left him a small toy, a key chain, that looked like a wrapped bundle of some sort that the child never let go off after first taking hold of it.

The caretaker never saw the young woman again.

o.o.o.o.o

In Dublin, a similar set of circumstances occurred, with a similar story, but a year earlier. Twins, the orphanage's director gasped, one of which was white, the other black, and both had green hair and, as the director would later learn, yellow eyes. The names given were Byelobog and Chernobog, Slavonic names that meant White God and Black God respectively. Strong names that fit the boys, which the girl surnamed as Haejigoku, the Japanese name for a Venus Fly Trap, which the boys both had green birthmarks of on their shoulders, the white on his left, and the black on his right. She wrote the names down and gave them to the director so that they would not be misspelled. She gave the boys a pair of the aforementioned plants, neither of which she named, which the boys both grew to care for greatly in the years following.

The director in Dublin never saw her again either.

o.o.o.o.o

Across the span of about four years, the United Kingdom held the somewhat dubious honor of hosting the rebirth of the Akatsuki. Small and wailing, in a new world where they didn't understand the language, but S-class criminals all the same.

o.o.o.o.o

Amos Diggory held his wife's hand as they gazed down at Cedric in her arms, smiling at him.

Nagato gazed back, willing to help this world as he had been unable to do to his own.

o.o.o.o.o

Over a year later, the Chang* family in Birmingham was celebrating the birth of a beautiful baby girl, named Cho by her Japanese-English mother, which her Chinese-English father agreed upon. Her sister, older by three years, looked over the edge of her mother's hospital bed, trying to see her.

Konan just gurgled up at them happily. A name that meant butterfly wasn't bad at all, even if she didn't recognize the surname or the rest of the language that was spoken above her, odd as it was.

o.o.o.o.o

A stupendously rich Pureblood woman had her first and only child, proudly naming him Blaise. Even if she cycled through husbands, she'd not let her baby boy go.

Kakuzu glanced at the hospital room he and his new mother were in, noting all the expensive things he could notice with his limited vision, as babies could see very little, and the high-end perfumes he could smell. Yes, he could definitely get used to this.

o.o.o.o.o

Molly Weasley hugged her newest son to her chest. He was the sixth one, and all the boys crowded around her, even the twins, not yet two years old. Ronald, she'd named him, Ronald Bilius Weasley. Even stick-in-the-mud Percy was glad to meet him.

How odd, Sasori's thoughts ran as he gazed up at the sea of red above him, that his second family would be the first in which he actually had the same hair as his parents, and that said family would be real and not consist of puppets. He smiled at that thought: to have a family again, a real and full one with much less of a chance of dying than his previous one had.

o.o.o.o.o

Narcissa Malfoy was a prideful woman, and an elegant one. Both labels fell to pieces when one saw her as a happy new mother holding her son, who had hair as naturally pale as her own and her husbands. Lucius stood next to her, austere, but there was a soft look in his eyes as he gazed down at his newborn child, enjoying the short vacation that his Lord had granted him for this monumental occasion before returning to work.

Hidan giggled as he stared up at his new mother. It wasn't because of his new family; it was because he'd been right. Jashin-sama _was_ real, and he'd brought Hidan back to life after the world had been destroyed! He'd been _right_, d***it! Take that, heathens!

o.o.o.o.o

Harry Potter was not a normal baby by any standards. He'd been born wailing like all children, but he was quiet after that, and chose to stay as close to his mother as possible. Lily found it slightly worrying, but the Healers assured her that there was nothing wrong with her son, even as he snuggled closer to her for warmth. They'd have to go into hiding soon, if Dumbledore's information was correct. They could only hope that they could give their son the childhood he deserved.

Itachi didn't believe that he deserved a second chance, but he'd go ahead and hope that his life here could be more productive and less eventful than his last one. Maybe he'd even get another little sibling to cherish and protect. His allowed his eyes to swirl red only when he closed his eyes, but even then he could tell that his vision was no longer in the dead state it had been, but at normal levels again, though it was clouded since he'd only just been born.

o.o.o.o.o

Both of the Lovegoods were very odd. That Luna took more to giggling than she did to wailing like most newborns was something that they took in stride. The fact that she also had tiny mouths on her palms and chest was something that Xenophilius simply decided had resulted from the involvement of Blibbering Humdingers or Nargles or something, and that his wife attributed to a misfired experimental spell that she must have cast before she knew she was pregnant.

Deidara felt weird as a girl, but, hey, if he got a new life out of it, who was he to complain? Besides, he was growing up anew, not suddenly thrust into a female body of his own mental age—and that would have been really awkward—so it didn't really matter. He even got to keep his hand-mouths!

o.o.o.o.o

"How long do you think we should wait to give Sasori his puppets?"

"No clue, Di. Five years, maybe? He'd be old enough to hide it by then."

She tilted her head. "Sure. Same with Hidan and his scythe?"

"Yeah, fine. By the way, why give Kisame the sword?"

"Samehada has a soul. Leaving her without Kisame would be a bad idea. You got the rest of the souls ready for transfers?"

"Yup. Ready to go?"

"Strip poker with the Shinigami?"

"Nah, he always wins."

"Drinking at your place it is, then."

o.o.o.o.o

* Cho Chang's family. Chang is a Chinese surname. Cho, however, is only a name in Japanese, in which it means butterfly, and in Korean, in which it means beautiful. Therefore, I decided that Cho Chang came from a family that is half Chinese-English and half Japanese-English. The reason that Konan knew what her name despite her new parents speaking mostly English to one another was because her mother called a relative to inform them of her, and that particular relative preferred speaking Japanese to speaking English. Yes, I actually looked up the names to make sure. I did my research _right_, people.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N- This will not go the same way as Advisor. On this one, I've actually got more than a ghost of a plotline made out, along with little jokes and quirks and running gags and all that. I'm also going to write out the entirety of what happens prior to their first year (which is bound to be long enough to fill up few dozen K) or until ten chapters are filled, whichever comes first, just to make sure I can pull this off and that I don't start hating it like Advisor. So, chances are, if you're reading this, I've already written out at least a few chapters, most of them longer than this, that are ready to be posted.**

**Jashin will come back after this. He needs someone to talk to outside the PC and his fellow gods, and Hidan is going to be his conversation partner. Diamond will show up again as well, but generally less than Jashin.**

**See you,**

**phoenixyfriend (AKA- Phoenix, President of the Phoenix Corporation and Agent Diamond's boss)**


	2. Shark and Crow

**A/N: And this is where we get into actual character thoughts. This actually leads to something I think I should mention, which is my usage of Gratuitous Japanese and how I refer to characters. This will be explained at the bottom because top-heavy author's notes are weird.**

**This chapter also has a lot of random subtext for some reason. I don't even support KisaIta, so I'm not all that sure where it came from. That said, bromance is **_**really**_** fun to write.**

o.o.o.o.o

Itachi was more than just annoyed on his second Halloween since birth. He was _furious_. He was also pretty sure that he knew exactly how his otouto had felt upon the massacre of the Uchiha clan.

He may not have learned this new world's language all that well yet—the Sharingan was marvelous at instantaneously analyzing visual data, but auditory data could barely be memorized, let alone evaluated—but he had felt extremely stressed and powerful cores at one time, with strained and hushed voices that he recognized as the kind one used when dealing with the stress of vital information, a vestige from his shinobi days. He had activated his Sharingan then and committed as much of the conversation to Sharingan-induced eidetic memory as he could, considering that he was dealing with an extremely limited chakra capacity. Of course, he also kept his eyes closed so that no one saw the hypnotic spinning, but that actually helped rather than hindered his auditory cataloguing.

The reason he was so angry was simple: his new family had been murdered. He'd gotten a second chance, hoped to actually protect his family once his body had reached the age where that would be physically possible, and then they'd been _murdered_. It was, simply put, infuriating.

He figured that he didn't deserve any less, really, but his new parents had been good people; too good to die as young as they had. His mother should not have had to give up her life for him. It had saved his own, yes, but Itachi was certain that he didn't deserve her sacrifice. His Sharingan had seen something fleeting come from her body to his as she'd died. He had quickly turned it off so that his attacker would not see, but the haze, whatever it was, had been there.

And the _attacker_. It was like another Orochimaru! Same snaky voice and tone, same malevolent aura—though he thought Orochimaru's may have been stronger—same odd obsession with children, if what he'd gleaned from conversations around him was true, same obsession with immortality… that was the man, the man they called Voldemort, that had come after him. He'd never liked Orochimaru, and he couldn't find even the slightest bit of good in the presence of this second snake man. It was a pity, really, that so many evil men chose snakes for their representative animal; it rather ruined the image for the poor creatures for anyone else that liked them.

He was picked up from the wreckage by an enormous man that he didn't recognize, who'd taken him away on a flying bike—didn't this belong to a friend of his parents? The one they called Padfoot, the one that had turned into a dog several times to amuse Itachi, or Harry, rather—to meet an old woman and even older man—he'd never seen a beard that long before—in a dark and empty street that made his shinobi senses flare up in alarm. Of course, he continued to pretend to sleep, understanding very little of what he heard but committing it to memory nonetheless for later perusal.

He was left on a porch in a basket. A basket! Being woken by a scream the next morning irritated him enough that he could barely keep himself from glaring at the shrill woman with his Sharingan, and simply settled for a false baby's wail as would be expected of him.

o.o.o.o.o

Itachi had decided very early on that his cousin needed to be taught manners. Since Dudley—such an odd name, and rather dull, in Itachi's opinion—held such an interest in fighting, Itachi decided that he'd use what knowledge he'd retained from his ninja days to become proficient again, and tutor the boy. Tutoring would, of course, involve _plenty_ lessons of discipline and respect as all martial arts schools did.

They were still only a few years old, however, so some induced fright by subconscious messages whenever he misbehaved would be enough. The first several times that Dudley had attempted to come close to 'Harry' with ill intentions in his eyes, Itachi had let loose the smallest dose of killing intent that he could. It had scared the pudgy boy off easily enough, though Petunia and Vernon—his Aunt and Uncle, apparently—often stared at the two boys, trying to figure out why their little Dudley feared their nephew so much, but they could never discern the real reason. It's not as if you could see killing intent, after all.

He was polite to them. He could tell that they resented him from the start—was it because of the magic? If there was one thing he remembered above all else, it was the vibrant colors that often poured from his parents' wands—and his higher than normal intelligence, much higher than their own son, only exacerbated their dislike. He took to his old customs, using honorifics whenever it was applicable, or at least their English versions, and bowing to those whom he considered his superiors, which was everyone other than Dudley at this point. The one time a Japanese businessman had come by for a dinner party, he'd surprised him by using honorifics correctly, even though all he'd done was use –san at the end of the man's name instead of putting Mr. in front of it. He'd lied and said he'd seen it on Dudley's TV when the Dursleys asked where he'd learnt such a thing.

o.o.o.o.o

At five, both Harry, as the world knew him, and Dudley were enrolled in a local public school for nursery. It was a fine enough school, and even had enough funding to support children from a nearby orphanage. Itachi found it extremely curious that one of said orphans was completely blue and had a keychain that looked remarkably like Samehada.

Oh, who was he kidding? He'd suspected it was Kisame the moment he saw the older boy.

They were a year apart in the school, and Itachi had channeled chakra to his ears to overhear his old friend's introduction in the next class over. Apparently, the orphanage he was at taught their charges up until they were ready for their first year of primary school, though most primary schools offered a year before, a nursery or playgroup (kindergarten to Americans), as well. The name he gave was nothing particularly special, Berilo Krahsson. He'd easily heard the warning that the teacher had given the students, telling them that she would not, under any circumstances, tolerate bullying of the boy for his hair or skin color. Most of the class was, oddly enough, more fascinated by him than prone to bullying him. They never got too close though, as if afraid of catching some disease.

There were a set of boys in Harry and Dudley's own class that decided that the new boy was a good target. Dudley had wanted to join in, but stopped when his—really, really scary—cousin mentioned that he wanted to be friends with the tall blue boy. 'Harry' had told Dudley to come if he was interested in befriending him, but that he would hold nothing against him if he stayed. Itachi was glad when his cousin decided to come along. It seemed he was getting through to him after all. Perhaps Dudley had just learned to associate cause and effect, but that was neither here nor there.

Itachi stalked through the crowd of bullies, Dudley following him like a large and somewhat ferocious dog—somewhat like his 'Aunt' Marge's, he supposed—right up to Berilo Krahsson, who was taking all the insults with a grin that wasn't even strained, and hurling back caustic comments that were as witty as a man nearly in his forties would dish out to such young children. Itachi held out his hand. "My name is Harry Potter, and this is my cousin Dudley Dursley."

'Berilo' raised an eyebrow and grinned in a sharkish manner that Itachi found to be quite familiar. Dudley shifted behind him, very nearly uncomfortable with being near someone that was larger than he was, even though that size took more place in height than in width as Dudley's was. Berilo, who Itachi was nearly 100% sure now was Kisame, stuck his own hand out and grabbed Itachi's. "Berilo Krahsson. Nice to meet you both. Are you here for a volley of wits or just here to be curbstomped like the rest of them?"

Itachi raised an eyebrow, and tiny—very tiny—waves of killing intent rolled off him, paired with a chakra spike that he was sure Kisame would recognize and signal back in turn. Sure enough, he did, and the group of people around them, Dudley, bullies, and onlookers, all backed away in a circle, as Itachi and Kisame—for that's who they were now, not the simple children that they pretended to be as Harry and Berilo—stepped back as if they were about to spar. They were, after all, though only with words and not physical weapons as they had years ago. Itachi's Sharingan spun all of one circle, enough for only his former partner to notice, and smirked as the shark-like grin on Kisame's face widened a fraction.

"I doubt I could be 'curbstomped' as you so eloquently put it, by a boy who appears to have misplaced blue paint on his head instead of his walls." The kids didn't really understand about half of what was said, but they still 'oo-ed' like the well-trained audience they were.

Kisame snorted. "And a scrawny little child like you, still needing a stool to get to the cookie just three feet above your head, is telling me?"

"Low blow." Itachi replied before any of the children could say anything, smirking self-assuredly at the bark of laughter that escaped Kisame at the irony of Itachi's statement compared to his own. "Besides, at least I'm not too heavy to use the see-saw with a friend. I doubt the same could be said for you, with your size."

"Oh!" The kids yowled, moving their heads back to Kisame as if following a tennis match.

"You're too cruel." Kisame made a dramatic move and laid a hand across his forehead. "But I suppose it's only to be expected, considering that you must be nearly as harsh towards that bird's nest you call a head of hair."

Itachi noticed that a teacher was actually watching them and not interfering. He had a smirk on his face, arms crossed and leaning against the building, as if the whole thing amused him. Maybe he just realized that this was a game to the two, and neither was actually hurt by it.

"My hair may look like a bird's nest, but you're bound to attract far more flocks with that fishy smell about you." Itachi bounced back. Sure, it wasn't the most inspired of comebacks, but both he and Kisame were obviously holding back, since they were children and, more importantly, _surrounded_ by children who could easily go home and ask their parents what certain inappropriate phrases may mean.

And that would be bad.

The bell for the end of recess rang then, and kids began filing back inside. Itachi and Kisame walked in together, ANBU hand signals that they both knew flashing.

_Tonight. Your base._ Itachi signed, completely aware that the 'language' they were using was rather impractical for this sort of conversation, but it was the best they had.

_Roof?_ The question was obviously implied, but Kisame still shot him a questioning look.

Itachi nodded. _Midnight._

So they separated, each with a small smile on their face at having found an old friend again.

"I'll see you later, Shark."

"Same to you, Crow."

o.o.o.o.o

That night at dinner, where Harry got a smaller portion than Dudley as per usual, the subject of the new kid at school was brought up by the pudgier of the two children. Of course, Dudley also had the presence of mind to hold off on mentioning 'Berilo's' unnatural and _abnormal_ hair and skin until his cousin brought it up.

"And they got in a fight on the playground!"

Itachi shook his head. "It was not a fight. It was a battle of wits."

"And did you win, boy?" Vernon asked, beady eyes narrowing.

Itachi shrugged, and reminded himself yet again to keep his language as simple as he possibly could. "The bell rang before we could finish, even if I got the last word in. I guess you could say that the bell won."

Vernon snorted, stabbing at his food with rather more force than necessary. "So it was a tie."

"I suppose."

o.o.o.o.o

At midnight, Kisame opened his window and walked out and up the wall to get to the roof. He found Itachi already there.

Let the bro-hug commence.

Itachi let Kisame hug him for a span of about fifteen seconds before pushing him off. "Enough. I get that you're glad I'm alive. No need to get clingy." He'd reverted to Japanese, and Kisame did the same, enjoying the ease of the words that came from his mouth for the first time in years.

"Tch." Kisame snorted. "We're both dead, to a point. You were killed by your psychotic little brother, and I let my sharks eat me to keep those Konoha and Kumo shinobi from getting info out of me. I'm pretty sure that we count as dead."

Itachi frowned. "Please do not refer to Sasuke as… psychotic, however true it may be." Loathe as he was to admit it, he had been rather… blind to his brother's nature before. Sasuke had gone insane from the power and pressure piled onto him, and Itachi still hadn't realized until shortly before the Edo Tensei had been released. Even then, he clung to some last vestiges of hope, but that while, those seven years where his only entertainment or challenge was to act the part of a child, had given him plenty of time to think and come to terms with what had happened.

Kisame shrugged. "Yeah, whatever. Why'd you even let him kill you in the first place?"

Itachi stared at the ground for a few minutes. "I suppose that at this point, secrecy is a moot point. Kisame, let me tell you the truth behind the Uchiha massacre…"

Itachi proceeded to explain everything, and even added in Tobi's real plan, the Eye of the Moon Plan. He knew of Kisame's hatred of lies, so a world that is under a genjutsu would be, Itachi hoped, off-putting enough that Kisame wouldn't side with Tobi if they ever saw the masked man again. Surprisingly, Kisame ignored the bit about the moon plan—what's Tobi going to do? It's not like there's a Juubi here to assemble, and it's not even a given that he's here—and continued back to the description about the Uchiha massacre.

"I'm really not sure how to react to most of what you mentioned about your massacre, but it's all behind us now. Besides, didn't you just say that you made up with your brother in the end with that mass Edo Tensei fiasco before the world collapsed in on itself? Though the fact that he declared revenge on Konoha anyway makes me think that there was more wrong with his head than just…"

SMACK.

"Alright, alright! I'll stop talking about your brother!" Kisame rubbed the back of his head, almost laughing at the odd nature of their exchange. "Anyways, what do we do now?"

Itachi leant back against the wall that edged the roof, looking up at the stars: Kisame copied him only a few feet away, their rather short bodies stretched out in the lukewarm air.

"We wait." Itachi said. "We were given a second chance, yes, but we can't do anything yet. We're only five, in your case six, years old. Not quite old enough to do anything on a grand scale, especially since this world has different standards compared to our old one. After we reach an age where we _can_ change things, we'll do it for the better. We were told that this was a chance to redeem ourselves, and I'm inclined to believe that and take advantage of it."

Kisame shrugged. "Sure. You always did have a better head for plans anyway. Do we train?"

"In secret." Itachi said flatly, the unsaid 'no duh' evident in his tone. Kisame ignored that and replied with an easy playfulness.

"Of course, _captain_. Think we'll find anyone else?"

"Hn."

"Ladies and Gentlemen, the final confirmation of identity has been presented: The Classic Uchiha Clan 'Hn'!" Kisame muttered under his breath, ignoring Itachi's glare. He then spoke in a louder tone. "I'll just take that as a yes. Do we tell anyone that we're…?"

"No. Keep it a secret unless absolutely necessary. I think you, of all people, understand what level of information this is."

"It's not enough to risk our lives over, that's for sure." Kisame grunted as he turned over to lie on his stomach and laid his head on his hands. "It's weird, being a kid again."

Itachi shrugged once, still on his back and looking up at the stars. "It's stranger for me, since I'm actually healthy now. Not feeling mind-blinding pain every time I so much as stand is something that I am surprisingly appreciative of. I'm also rather confused as to why I still have my Sharingan, considering the fact that it's supposed to be genetic."

Kisame tilted his head to the side. "They gave me my Samehada. She's probably the only weapon they did though, since she's actually alive. Maybe they just wanted to give us a leg up in all this?"

Itachi frowned slightly, eyes barely narrowing. "Perhaps."

o.o.o.o.o

'Harry' began to show Dudley taijutsu at the age of six. The taijutsu wasn't anywhere near as demanding as what Itachi had learned at that age—there was no chance that Itachi was going to let Dudley become anything _near_ a shinobi—but it was still mild taijutsu. 'Berilo' had finally come for a 'play date' soon after this under the supervision of one of the caretakers from the orphanage. She'd explained to the Dursleys after meeting them about Berilo's birth defects, the coloration, and spoken with them about how much happier the boy seemed after meeting Harry and Dudley.

The Dursleys had, after much convincing and crocodile tears on Dudley's part, allowed Berilo to become one of their regular playmates. Behold their astonishment when they saw the blue boy and their nephew start an impromptu spar on the third play date in. The fight was, to the former Akatsuki members' eyes, shoddy and sloppy, with taijutsu that their bodies had not yet memorized. To the adults, it was seeing a fight between self-trained martial arts prodigies. The prodigy idea definitely chafed at the Dursleys, and they eventually demanded to know just where Harry had learnt all that. He replied that he'd seen it while watching TV with Dudley. This, of course, lead to an in depth conversation with his relatives over just how he could remember something like that after only seeing it once. They eventually came to the conclusion, somewhat accurately, that he had a photographic memory. An eidetic memory—the real name that they didn't bother using around little children—more or less came as part of being an Uchiha, or former Uchiha, as it were. Even without the Sharingan, a good memory was more or less guaranteed, eidetic or not.

The Dursleys eventually began using that as an excuse for when he got better grades than Dudley, ignoring the fact that Harry was genuinely smarter than his cousin, and would have been even without the reincarnation factor; there was a reason that he was regarded widely as a child prodigy in Konoha, after all, even after he killed the majority of his clan. It wasn't as if shinobi arts were all of it. At least it kept them from getting angry at him for his intelligence; they just said that he was cheating without getting caught, and Harry left them to believe that. Dudley… actually didn't care all that much.

Kisame, when they met for midnight spars and to talk about the mediocre old days, found it more or less hilarious.

It was rather interesting, Itachi eventually decided, that it really wasn't all that hard to turn things his way. All he really needed to do was get Dudley to agree with him, and his 'victory' was nearly assured. He still slept in the cupboard, unfortunately, and he didn't get anywhere near as many presents as Dudley did for birthdays and holidays, but he'd managed to spin things so that they were, while not quite in his favor, they weren't exactly against it either. He had even managed to convince Aunt Petunia that his hair would look less messy if he grew it out; he soon had the comforting feeling of a ponytail swinging behind him again.

o.o.o.o.o

Itachi was nine and a half when Kisame got the letter. It was a few days after the former shark-man's 'eleventh' birthday—his birthday was on the same date as it had been in his past life, odd as that was—that he'd been whisked away from the orphanage by an odd man in a cloak of all things for a few hours. He wasn't exactly supposed to tell anyone, but Itachi was an exception he would more than gladly make.

"Magic, Kisame?"

"You can't tell me that you think I'm lying. You already told me that your parents were apparently magical. You can't say that you don't believe me."

Itachi shrugged. "Well, you were always one of the less serious members of the Akatsuki. A prank would not be outside the realm of possibility. However, for what it's worth, I do believe you. Can I see your wand?"

Kisame snickered. "Why Itachi, I didn't know you thought of me that way."

THOK.

Kisame rubbed the back of his head where Itachi had smacked him. "Sorry, couldn't resist. I'm older than you, in both ways, you know. I'm allowed to tease you."

"Kisame. Wand. The one you use to do magic. And no jokes about magic in your pants."

Kisame rolled his eyes. "Geez, Itachi, I'm not a pervert. Every man's entitled to a dirty joke or two; it doesn't mean that I'll be saying one every five seconds."

"The wand, Kisame. Focus."

Kisame frowned. "You're such a killjoy sometimes, Itachi. Here, fourteen inches, willow, dragon heartstring. Apparently good for transfiguration."

Itachi looked at the wand. Nothing particularly interesting about it popped out at him, but it did seem a bit longer than either of the ones that his parents had used.

He handed it back with a nod, which Kisame answered with an eye roll.

"So we've got until August thirty-first before I leave. Let's make the best of it."

"It'll only be a year later that I will come as well."

"Yeah, but saying stuff like this makes room for more fun activities that I'd usually have to try to intoxicate you to try and make you do."

"Hn."

o.o.o.o.o

It was only a few hours into term that Kisame found other Akatsuki members, or rather, that they found him. The blue hair and skin sort of gave it away, as the green hair and the black and white skin respectively had for Zetsu a year earlier. Nagato—apparently what Leader-sama's real name was back in their original world—was in the year above him, as was Zetsu. Both of Zetsu. They'd been split, though they never spent more time apart than necessary. Kisame had, for reasons even he didn't quite understand, been sorted into Hufflepuff, where Nagato, now Cedric Diggory, was. Kuro-Zetsu, now Chernobog Haejigoku—Kisame really had to snicker a bit at the surname—was in Slytherin, while Shiro-Zetsu, now Byelobog, had made his way into Gryffindor. The fact that they had managed to stay close despite being in rival houses amazed people, the 'oppositely colored twins with green hair' detail notwithstanding.

Konan, now Cho Chang, had been placed squarely in Ravenclaw. Kisame wasn't particularly surprised; he honestly could have seen her in any of the houses. She was cunning enough for Slytherin, definitely, and could lie her way out of just about any situation. She was intelligent enough for Ravenclaw, as her placement had proven. She was brave enough to fight Tobi head on despite knowing his power, and almost won, at that. She was loyal to Nagato, and had continued to risk her life for his ideals even after his death. But into Ravenclaw she'd gone, and with her there, they had at least one person in each house.

Itachi received word of this the afternoon that they'd all found each other, and wrote back as quickly as he could. He sent the note using Kisame's new Eagle Owl, which had affectionately been named Daito. As it turned out, none of the other three, or four, depending how you looked at it, had known about the others before coming to Hogwarts. Only the two halves of Zetsu had known each other. Hopefully, it wouldn't be too much trouble to find the rest, and hopefully they'd already found at least one of the others.

The year passed without event, and Itachi received the letter addressed to 'Mr. H. Potter' without incident; he hid the note from his relatives and dropped it off in his cupboard before handing the rest of the letters in to his uncle at the breakfast table. He borrowed Kisame's owl to send a reply, requesting someone to accompany the both of them to the alley. That someone was a rather intimidating man —to civilians, at least—that came several days before Harry's birthday. The Dursleys, on seeing Snape—who seemed extremely cold to Petunia in particular, and she reacted to his comments with blatant hostility—couldn't really refuse.

Berilo played off of questions about why he'd seen fit to give the knowledge of magic to someone that didn't know before by claiming that he'd wanted to warn his friend of the inevitable fangirls before he was taken by surprise by his apparent fame.

"Oh?" Snape queried. "Has Mr. Potter had such encounters with… _fangirls_ before?"

"They're obliviously evil, sir." Harry said, completely serious. "They may not realize that they are, but a horde of fangirls is one of the most evil and destructive things on the planet."

Snape could only stare at the boy that, with hair and an expression like that, really wasn't all that much like his father, and wonder at how a boy could be scared of fangirls. "How and why?"

"Primary school. They liked my hair." Itachi relayed with a shudder. "I almost cut it just to get rid of them."

Snape was unsure of how to proceed, but took the two to the Leaky Cauldron, where they were to be 'handed off' to Hagrid, who would finish up their buying of school supplies.

Some of it went without incident, though the odd bits did occur. He had practically been attacked by thankful civilians in the pub. The goblins had, for whatever reason, realized that he and Berilo were not normal children, and warned them, _in Japanese, no less_, that even if they thought that they had the skills to do so, attempting to rob Gringotts would be a bad idea. It was rather broken Japanese with terrible accents, but Japanese nonetheless. Hagrid had been dumbfounded when little Harry had gone and bought this and that in Flourish and Blotts that had not been on his list, including several books with titles that he couldn't even read because they were written in Hiragana. Berilo had not been much different in that respect.

During wand shopping, Mr. Ollivander had reacted most oddly to both boys, though it seemed that Harry was destined to have the holly and phoenix feather wand that was the brother of Voldemort's.

The most interesting and, of course, most _important_ event, however, happened in Madam Malkin's. Berilo had gone to look at the Magical Menagerie for some reason, and Hagrid had gone for his little pick-me-up at the Leaky Cauldron, so Harry was left alone for his robe fittings. The boy next to him had aristocratic features and hair that seemed pale, almost naturally a bleached blonde. He started speaking with Harry almost immediately, introducing himself as Draco Malfoy, and not reacting to the name of Harry Potter with any real interest. Soon into the pleasantries, he brought up a rather interesting point.

"My father says that anyone with less than pure blood shouldn't be allowed at Hogwarts, especially not muggleborns. My mother agrees with him."

Harry raised an eyebrow, more interested in the boy's expression. "You don't seem to agree."

The boy snorted. "I don't. It's all a load of bulls***, if you ask me."

He raised a hand and ran it through his pale hair, a leather bracelet with a silver symbol hanging from it glinting as he did so. Itachi's eyes widened before narrowing slightly with hidden mirth. The silver symbol was a circle with a triangle within: the symbol of Jashin.

Itachi, no longer Harry, switched over to Japanese quickly. "That's good. From what I've heard from Kisame, it's rather a bit too much like the Kekkei Genkai fiascos back in the Elemental Countries. The civilians feared them; Kiri hated them; the other villages loved them if they had them, and Konoha practically revered them. I'd rather hoped to leave such nonsense behind when I was told that I'd be reborn in a new realm."

A sharp intake of breath next to him indicated that he'd sent 'Draco' into high alert. A slight metal clink and a flash of red and silver indicated that he probably even had his scythe with him, likely miniaturized as Samehada had been. "Who…?"

Itachi turned and smiled, Sharingan spinning to life. "It's nice to see you again, Hidan."

The breath hissed out, and Hidan reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Uchiha. At least tell me that I'm talking to Itachi and not Tobi."

Itachi smirked. "Hn. Have you found anyone else yet?"

Hidan glared, not caring that he was staring straight into a spinning Sharingan. He cursed Itachi quietly under his breath in English, presumably for 'being a d***,' for a few seconds before replying in Japanese again. "Yeah, Kakuzu's the same age as us, first year; he's just a couple months older. Still a miser, and somehow got born to some gold digger lady with half a dozen different fortunes to her name by now. No word on anyone else."

Itachi shrugged, nodding to Hidan and looking past him to see a blue friend walking in. "I knew Kisame from my neighborhood, and he went last year and found Konan, Leader-sama, and Zetsu. Zetsu got split somehow, though, so he's actually a pair of twins on his own now."

Hidan nodded, not seeing Kisame walking up behind him. "So is Sharky still blue, then?"

"Yes, I am." Kisame spoke up from behind him. He easily ducked under a half-hearted swing of Hidan's scythe a second later. Kisame just held out his hand to shake, which Hidan ignored, and introduced himself, in English, with his latter name. "Berilo Krahsson, and I'm pleased to meet you."

"Seriously! What is wrong with you people?" Right back to Japanese.

"We're reincarnated, formerly S-ranked, former criminal shinobi with access to magic." Kisame said cheerfully.

Hidan didn't bother replying to that. He just made a non-sequitor of sorts, smirk on his face. "I was right."

The other two tilted their heads as Madam Malkin bustled in and started taking Kisame's measurements. Itachi asked the next question. "What were you right about that we doubted you on?"

Hidan was visibly irritated at that, and simply raised one of his hands, pointing at the Jashin symbol with his other. His face was amusingly blank.

"Oh." Kisame said, looking somewhat uncomfortable. He was fishing for a new topic, and quickly asked, "So are you still immortal, then?"

Hidan scoffed. "Of course I am. If I wasn't, I'd be dead fifty times over by now. Kakuzu cuts of my head almost every time he sees me. Since my mother and his are friends, and they're convinced that we are too, it's inevitable that we see each other a lot."

"He still cuts your head off whenever you irritate him?" Itachi asked incredulously. "Isn't he worried that someone will see? Or at least about the blood stains?"

Hidan looked uncomfortable at that. "Do you know what a House Elf is?"

Their eyes darkened. Itachi spoke first. "I hope you don't approve of that."

Hidan tilted his head to the side. "If he didn't like it, I wouldn't. The problem is that most House Elves love to work, so disapproving would actually make it worse for them. I don't approve of the abuse that my father puts him through, though."

Itachi frowned, eyeing Hidan up and down. "It just occurred to me that you're not being anywhere near as coarse as you were the last time I spoke with you."

Hidan snorted mirthlessly at that. "Malfoys aren't crude, apparently. If I could talk however I wanted to, I'd be cursing up a storm like a sailor whenever I talked. As it is…" He shrugged.

"You're done, dears." Madam Malkin shooed all three of them off the stools, and Hidan began to walk over to a woman that they presumed to be his mother.

"Goodbye, Potter, Krahsson."

"I hope to see you at school, Malfoy."

"See ya, kid."

Hidan just waved with one hand and discreetly flipped them off with the other.

o.o.o.o.o

Hagrid had bought him an owl, and the Dursleys had moved him to the smaller bedroom, with Dudley putting up a minimum of fuss over the matter. He'd decided to give her a name that fit his new world well, and so chose the name Hedwig from his history book.

Itachi quickly scripted out missives to the other known members of Akatsuki, remembering to include a message for Kakuzu, whose new name he hadn't gotten, in Hidan's letter.

o.o.o.o.o

The Dursleys had driven both Berilo and Harry to King's Cross Station, muttering disparagingly about magic under their breath the whole time, as Dudley scooted away from them discretely.

There had been no trouble getting onto the platform, and they'd found a compartment easily enough. Kisame had left to find the rest of the Akatsuki, leaving Itachi to watch their things. A redheaded boy had poked his head in, a rather bored—almost looking like he was stoned, really—expression on his face.

"First year?"

Harry—for that was who he was at this point—raised an eyebrow. "Yes. Why?"

The boy tilted his head to the side a bit. "I'm just trying to find someone else in first year to sit with. Do you mind if I do?

Harry indicated the seat across from him, which the boy took quickly. His movements had a certain kind of fluidity to them, and he really shouldn't have been able to put his trunk up as easily as he had. Harry's eyes narrowed. All they had left was Sasori, Deidara, and Tobi to find. Was this one of them?

"What house do you think you're going into?" The redhead asked.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Gryffindor, I hope. I can see some attributes of each of the houses in myself, but so can just about anyone. I've been told that both of my parents were in Gryffindor, though, so I hope I end up there. And you?"

"Gryffindor as well. All my family's been there, though the only house that I think is a negative for me is Hufflepuff."

Harry nodded, and then stuck out his hand. "Harry Potter."

Rather than shooting up to Harry's forehead, his eyes simply narrowed almost imperceptibly and stayed trained on Harry's face. "Ron Weasley."

Harry nodded and pulled out a book, sensing that the conversation was over. Several seconds after he'd started reading, Ron was rummaging in his belongings, and pulled out a marionette and a knife. He began carving details on the marionette's face, and that was all it took for Itachi to come to the conclusion. The carved scorpion on the marionette's chest helped in that respect, as did the sight of the scrolls in his bag that poked out when he took it out.

"Well, at least _you're_ not the puppet this time, Akasuna no Sasori." The full title wasn't necessary, but it caused more of a reaction. Itachi set his Sharingan a-spinning again, knowing that it was the simplest way to reveal his identity.

"Uchiha." The word was low and resigned; there was a small hint of exasperated amusement as well, for some odd reason. "It appears that Deidara was right after all."

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: And that's chapter two! I wrote most of this on a transatlantic plane ride, though I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't write any more than this.**

**Okay, names and Gratuitous Japanese, the explanations.**

**Names: This chapter either confused you or enlightened you in that respect. Which name I refer to them as is indicative of who they "are" just then. It they are with other Akatsuki members and people that know who they are, they act as their old selves, and will be referred to by their old names. Otherwise, they will probably be referred to by their newer names, because that's the part they're playing at that time. If they 'shift' their thinking to be geared as a shinobi, the name I use for them changes as well.**

**Gratuitous Japanese: Sorry people, but it's a fact of life that people will accidentally, or even not-so-accidentally, mix words from one language they speak with another one they do. It may even feel completely natural. I do it all the time with English and Serbian, especially when speaking Serbian, where I use English to replace words that I don't know in Serbian, since I know English better than I do my primary language. There are also words that just don't translate well. Jutsu feels more natural than technique when they talk about shinobi skills, but spell will feel more natural when they talk about magic than its Japanese equivalent. The Akatsuki will use Japanese words in their English conversations and English words in their Japanese conversations. Sorry, but it just happens that way.**

**And yeah, KisaIta bromance. Somehow.**

**Now, a question: I mentioned last chapter that I update once a month (technically once every four weeks, but the former is easier to say). So… what's the point in telling me to update soon?**

**Next chapter is Kakuzu and Hidan. This chapter, even excluding both of the Author's Notes, broke six thousand words, which I consider a lot.**


	3. Priest and Thief

**A/N: Jashin and Diamond are pretty much an audience surrogate, just with some influence on the story. Really, all they do half the time is stand on the sidelines and eat popcorn while mocking or badgering the poor little humans.**

o.o.o.o.o

When they first found each other, they were two.

Saturday tea between the matriarchs of both the House of Zabini and the House of Malfoy, at Malfoy manor, was where and when the two women decided to finally bring their sons to meet each other. It was supposed to be a one-time thing, but the two boys had demanded to see each other again, pouting until their mothers cooed over them and agreed to the boys' bright, and quite possibly faked, smiles.

The first meeting had gone as such:

o.o.o.o.o

Little Draco was sitting on his mother's lap, biting into a biscuit from the table as he stared across the table at the boy on the other side. The boy was rather boring at first, but then again, he was two.

Only at first, though. The boy had been looking around, and then Hidan heard a mutter.

"Looks like solid gold. Must be rather expensive. Inheritance and investments? Probably a…"

_Not_ something you expect a two-year-old to say in any language, in any location. It especially wasn't something you expected to hear when it was said by a British two-year-old in Japanese.

It probably sounded like mild-mannered gibberish to the women, but for little Draco, it was a something eye-opening. It was something exciting. It was something infuriating.

Only one member of Akatsuki would act like that. Of _course_, of all members, Kakuzu would be the one that would be reborn near him. It just had to be the—

"Old miser." Draco, now quite irritated, muttered under his breath in Japanese.

Brown eyes landed on grey and narrowed. Simultaneously, the boys got off their mother's laps and walked off into a different room, ignoring the surprised and confused women they left behind.

"Kakuzu." Hidan, for he now was more than just the Malfoy heir, he was an S-rank nukenin in a two-year-old scion's body, spoke with venom once they were in a different room. "Still a money obsessed heathen, I see."

"Hidan. I wish I could say I was pleased to see you, but that would obviously be a lie."

A crack sounded as Dobby appeared into the room with a crack and some drinks, ready to carry them in for Narcissa and Aphrodisia. The poor house elf stopped dead as he saw what basically amounted to a pair of two-year-olds in a standoff that, had it not been for several rather glaring details, would not have looked out of place in an old western.

"Dobby?" Narcissa called from the parlor. "Are those the drinks?"

Dobby squeaked and quickly ran off, not spilling a drop. "Yes, Mistress Malfoy!"

Kakuzu's head tilted. "A house elf? Then your family's affluence must…"

"Stop talking about f***ing money, d***it!" Hidan hissed, taking a step forward. "Is that still the only c*** you ever think about?"

Kakuzu stared back, and then lowered himself down onto the floor. "Of course it is. What else am I supposed to do? It's not as if I can go around stealing hearts like this."

Hidan deadpanned. "Yes, because a two-year-old running around and tearing people's hearts out is completely unnoticeable."

"Idiot."

"Miser."

"Zealot."

"Heathen."

"Now, now, girls, you're both pretty. I even came to visit, after all."

Slowly, ever so slowly, the two boys turned to look at the mirror. In the reflection, there was a lounging figure, one that sat on the ground lazily and leaned against the frame.

Hidan's eyes grew wide, and his voice reverent. "Jashin-sama."

The man with the blue hair smiled and lifted a hand in a nonchalant wave. "Yo!"

Kakuzu glared. Hidan noticed and hit him. A small scuffle started, ending with the attention-drawing cough of the god. The pair of 'mature' two-year-olds slowly turned to look at him, still frozen mid-brawl.

"Where did you get that popcorn?"

"I'm a _god_. Where wouldn't I get it?" Jashin shrugged away Kakuzu's question, still munching on his warm, salty, buttery… ahem. "So, are you two liking the arrangements?"

"Of course, Jashin-sama!"

"They are adequate."

Jashin snorted. "Adequate? Jeez… See, there's a reason why Hidan's my favorite."

Hidan smiled cheerily at him, ignoring the disdainful looks sent to him by Kakuzu.

"Did you know," Jashin began, "That the collapse of our dimension was actually a good thing? The dimension, compared to others, was a travesty. That dimension was one of the worst ones out there, and you know what? I got some time off. I got substantial time off, for the first time in _centuries_. I am _very_ happy right now. After we finally finished transferring souls about a year ago, I finally got a chance to go out drinking. I only ever got to do that for maybe a few hours every couple months before, and not at all after Hidan got buried and—"

"Why didn't you get him out, if he's so important to you?" Kakuzu asked. Hidan elbowed him, but managed to not start another fight.

Jashin pointed straight at Kakuzu. "_That_. _That_ is a very good question. There was a rebellion in the demon realm that I had to take care of, and by the time I got it handled, the dimension was collapsing already because we'd stopped getting souls in. I had to be hooked up to some sort of generator so that I could provide energy for that realm personally. I sent a couple subordinates off to handle it, but it wasn't soon enough."

There was a lull in the conversation then, until Jashin spoke again. "Hidan, stop making that face. We both know you're not that uptight around me. Just because your old partner is here, you don't have to act like you're in front of Shinigami or Kami. That woman's got enough vanity for all three of us."

The light in Hidan's eyes dimmed, if only slightly, and he relaxed, leaning against a chair near the mirror. He smirked in amusement. "Oh, I know."

"Just doing it to p*** him off?"

"Absolutely."

"Can you stop talking about me like I'm not here?"

"Anyway, I was tapping into the Hive Mind last week, and you wouldn't _believe_ what happened in Sector 3…"

It was interesting to Hidan. It was infuriating to Kakuzu. It was amusing as all h*** to Jashin.

o.o.o.o.o

"What are you doing?"

They were five now. Hidan had gotten his scythe at his birthday, and was rather ecstatic about it. It was usually miniaturized and stored in a seal that was imprinted on his Jashinist bracelet.

"Tracking the stock market."

Draco stared. "You're _five_. What kind of five-year-old tracks the stock market?"

"The kind that has investments to track."

"What kind of five-year-old has fr***in' stocks?!"

"My kind."

Draco simply stared at Blaise. "I hate you. So very, very d*** much."

"Tch. Let me stare at my lovely IKEA."

Draco just glared at him for a few seconds, and then walked off.

Five minutes later, Blaise was glaring at Draco, who was currently sticking out his tongue at him, as the two went to a Quidditch match with Narcissa.

"I hate you. So very, very d*** much."

"Tch. Let me look forward to my lovely violence."

o.o.o.o.o

He was six.

Draco had a book open in front of him, sitting on a comfy armchair. Narcissa smiled and went over to him.

"Hello, sweetie. What are you reading?"

"Cien Años de Solidad, by Gabriel García-Márquez." He replied, and then looked up to see his mother staring at the book in slight confusion.

"What language is that book in?"

Draco smirked a smirk that he would commonly smirk in his future smirking days, but hid it from his mother by 'glancing' back down at the book. "Spanish."

Narcissa tilted her head slightly to the side, still leaning over to have her head at the same level as her son's. She was trying to stay calm. "Where did you learn that?"

Draco stood and walked with somewhat unnatural grace—grace befitting of a shinobi, grace that most civilians, Narcissa included, could not detect—to one of the bookshelves. He pulled out a book, and showed it to his mother. It was a book designed specifically for an English-speaker to learn Spanish. There was nothing incriminating about it.

"I tried some of the other books," He pointed to the ones meant for early Arithmancy, Transfiguration, and a number of other subjects, "But the language ones are the only ones that were easy."

"How many others did you read?" Narcissa asked, still a bit excited that her son was so talented in at least one field.

Draco frowned for a second, and held up two fingers. "French and Japanese. Japanese was the easiest."

"Okay, sweetie. You can keep reading."

She walked away, thoughts circling on the fact that her baby boy could already speak four languages.

Hidan, no longer Draco, smirked. _English, and Japanese, and Spanish, and French, and Bulgarian, and Mandarin Chinese, and even Korean. Really, it's quite easy, with this much free time paired with an adult mind that's already geared for it._

…_I've got way too much time on my hands._

o.o.o.o.o

They were seven.

"Kakuzu…"

"I'm fine. I'm going to kill that b******, and no one will even suspect Mother this time."

"Are you going to take his heart?"

"Of course. The man's been abusing my mother for weeks. You are my alibi for tonight, and the gala is hers."

"Dude, you're seven. I don't think you need a f***in' alibi."

"I need to be prepared in any case."

"Death by?"

"Trust me when I say that it's going to be something _very_ ironic."

o.o.o.o.o

"How did you do it?" Hidan asked, sitting on his bed. This was the first time he'd had to ask Dobby to clean up blood and bloodstains, and convincing him not to tell anyone was actually easier than he'd thought. Apparently, he was the kindest of the Malfoys.

…Considering who and what he was in his past life, he didn't really want to think of what that must have meant about his parents.

"How did I what?"

"Take his heart _and_ kill him the way you did."

Kakuzu shrugged, scratching at his neck; he'd had pride in his stitches before, and shown them for that reason, but he knew now that he needed to hide them, and did, albeit reluctantly. A genjutsu hid the ones that he had now: the ones on his wrists and neck, though a new set had been added to his chest just minutes earlier.

"I incapacitated him. Tortured him for a bit. Took his heart, and kept his blood pumping using some muggle technology."

"Where did you—?"

"Black market. I have contacts. Then I took the car battery, hooked him up to it, and…" His grin grew and he shuddered mockingly in imitation of the man's death. "I think you know the rest, even if you aren't all that intelligent. As I said, irony; he was as bigoted a pureblood as they come, and so got taken out by a muggle device that's not even supposed to be used that way."

"Kakuzu, you scare me right now. Very much." Hidan deadpanned, rubbing his temples. "A seven-year-old should not be doing this. A seven-year-old should not have contacts in the black market. A seven-year-old should not know how to keep a man alive after taking away his heart. It's f***in' _creepy_."

"Would it be helpful if I mentioned that I left a note to indicate that it was done by a non-existent third party from Venezuela that had a grudge against him for embezzling funds from some illegal drug trafficking trade routes?"

"…You scare me very, _very_ much."

o.o.o.o.o

Two weeks later was the first time that Kakuzu cut Hidan's head off in this dimension. After the initial panic, Dobby had agreed to clean up so long as he could be sure that the young master wasn't going to die or be hurt by this.

"Of course it f***in' hurts!" Hidan yelled. Kakuzu rolled his eyes.

"It's not permanent. Now get to cleaning. Keep it a secret and I'll give you a five Sickles per month."

Dobby stared at him for a second, and then bowed low with a smile. "Of course."

And thus he became the first paid House Elf, via bribery.

o.o.o.o.o

They were eight.

They'd gone to Diagon Alley, where Kakuzu hassled some goblins about muggle money and currency exchange rates before being dragged out of the bank by his 'friend' of sorts, and Hidan grew bored after being told that he wasn't allowed in Knockturn Alley. The trip started out as most of their trips to the area had, and neither expected the visit that they got.

"Hello, boys!" The sickly sweet voice sent shivers down their spines, and they turned to see a rather short but still undeniably beautiful redhead standing behind them, though she was still taller than the two, being an adult. She was also showing off her midriff and wearing a rather short skirt with body-hugging leather everywhere else, even leggings, but the threatening waves of danger that came off of her easily kept men from getting a little too fresh.

"Diamond." Hidan actually sounded a little… scared. Nervous, even.

"Hey." She smiled down at them, but the smile served more to unnerve them than to make them more at ease. "Why don't you two come with me?"

It wasn't a question, despite any and all appearances to the contrary. The two found themselves being steered towards a table in front of Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor, where someone familiar was smiling at the three of them.

"Yo." Said Jashin, raising the hand with the ice cream as if in salute. Hidan's face burst into a grin and Kakuzu looked relieved, if only slightly. This seemed to amuse Diamond.

"Oh, you two don't hate me that much, do you? After all, it's already been, oh, a decade or something since you last saw me, hasn't it? Give or take a couple years? Well, it's been that long to you, anyways…"

They flinched as she lightly squeezed their shoulders, reminding them of just what she was, or at least of her power in comparison to their own.

All Kakuzu really knew about her was that she was a drinking buddy of Jashin's, and that's it. Just that fact, though, implied that she was on the level of the gods. Hidan knew more, but…

Jashin rolled his eyes at her and motioned for the two to sit down and take the small menus. "Go on and choose something. We took care of the ever-so-illustrious Madame Malfoy. She's not going to come looking for you, or think anything of it afterwards."

"Pistachio." Kakuzu said in seconds. "With chocolate syrup."

"Lemon sorbet." Hidan decided. "And rainbow sprinkles."

"Rainbow sprinkles? Really?" Kakuzu questioned, sneer on his face.

"Why care?" Diamond butted in before they could get the argument on the ball, lollipop hanging out of her mouth. "You're eight. To each his own. Any other valid excuses or phrases that explain things so that I don't have to listen to you two bickering over something this stupid are allowed. Good thing I got you early."

"Sit down, Di." Jashin muttered. "Fr***in' ginger midget."

"Oi." Diamond muttered, mock-glaring at her friend. "I don't have freckles, so I'm not a ginger, and I'm not _short_. I'm _fun-size_. Besides, the legal cut-off point for being considered a midget in order to get disabled services in the US is four foot ten. I'm an inch taller than that."

"We're in the UK."

"Do I _look_ like I care?"

Jashin just snorted and motioned for her to sit down as he glanced around. "Send a clone for the ice cream, will you?"

Diamond rolled her eyes and threw herself down into a chair. "Yeah, yeah, you little b******."

She brought a wrist up to her mouth and lightly ran her teeth over the skin there, which split like hot butter. The blood slopped out, more and more, until it formed a clone next to her. The clone smirked and went off for the ice creams, swinging her hips a little more than strictly necessary.

"I've got stronger illusions than even Itachi, so you don't have to worry about anyone seeing what just happened, or that there are two of me." She informed the two ex-nukenin. She put her elbow on the table and propped her head up on her hand, reaching out with the other to the boys to shake hands. "I never did properly introduce myself. I'm Agent Diamond of the Phoenix Corporation, also known as the Blood Mage and a few other names. My spheres of influence are blood and demonic and supernatural forces, with some dabbling in mind arts and illusions. Pleased to formally meet you."

"I knew all that already." Hidan mentioned. When she turned to him in question, he quickly pointed to the blue-haired man at the table. "Jashin-sama told me."

"Of course he did." Diamond muttered, using her tongue to flip her lollipop to the other side of her mouth. "He always does enjoy ruining my fun."

"Don't be a b****." Jashin said lightly, ignoring the clone that had come back with the ice creams. It handed one to each of the boys, and then seemed to simply evaporate.

"You want a blood-pop with that?" Diamond offered a lollipop with a black stem like her own to them. Jashin went to hit her, but she ducked.

"A**hole." She muttered, fixing her hair. "And here I was, actually being friendly."

He waved her away, turning to look at Kakuzu. "It won't work."

Kakuzu raised an eyebrow and denied everything. "I don't know what you mean."

"We don't have much money on us, and whatever scheme you try to employ get more money will backfire if we're involved. Don't bother trying."

Kakuzu shrugged. "Too bad. I probably could have made a fortune."

Hidan tried to slug him in the face, but the miser ducked out of the way. "A**hole."

"Idiot."

"Girls, girls, you're _both_ pretty. Can I go home now?"

"Yes." The boys said without hesitation. Diamond pouted, looking remarkably put out. Jashin looked amused, as always. Maybe he was remembering years earlier when he himself had used almost that exact line on the two as well.

"C'mon, you two. You not only took it seriously, you didn't even get the reference. I guess that's what we get for placing you with purebloods, though…" She mused over it for a few seconds, and then slapped the table as she seemingly came to a decision.

"I'll tell you what. Once a month, I'm taking you guys to a muggle movie theater for cultural osmosis."

They felt a shudder go down their spines.

"I'll come too." Jashin offered, grinning.

Aw, h***.

o.o.o.o.o

At nine, Kakuzu did it for a second time.

He killed a wizard, another stepfather.

"I took the heart again. That should probably be enough to convince the authorities that it was at least similar to the reason from last time."

"D*** it, Kakuzu. You have to stop this. Why are you even taking the hearts?" Hidan muttered as he dabbed at a scratch on Kakuzu's cheek that had occurred since this new 'victim' was slightly more capable than the last one, and Kakuzu had both underestimated the man and overestimated his own nine-year-old body.

Kakuzu shrugged. "Contingency plans, for one. I don't want to die. There's also the fact that it just feels comfortable to have them."

Hidan stared for a few moments. "Comfortable." He sounded pretty dubious. "Where the f*** do you even fit them all?"

Kakuzu shrugged. "It's part of the kinjutsu. The ones that I have aren't enough, though. I want five. I won't feel complete without two more."

Hidan was silent for a few minutes. Then he said something rather unexpected.

"You can have mine."

"What?"

Hidan turned to look at Kakuzu, face more or less blank of emotion. "It's not good for you to just go around f***ing killing people. I mean, yeah, it was fine with these two because, h***, they deserved that. But seriously, those hearts probably aren't even any good."

"You still haven't explained why you think I should take _yours_." Kakuzu groused.

Hidan shrugged. "There's a little thing called a healing factor. I have it."

"You're saying you can grow a new heart."

"Yes."

"Why didn't you ever tell me this before?"

Hidan rolled his eyes. "Well, it's not like you would have wanted it, right? You were concerned about getting specific types of hearts back then, and that'll be d*** near impossible here so it doesn't matter. Besides, you probably would have tried to harvest them for the black market or some s***."

"I could retrain the hearts for a certain element, if they're blank like the ones here. I've already tuned the last one for Katon jutsu." Kakuzu was rather irritated by this point.

Hidan glared. "Listen, do you want it or not?"

"I'll take it."

"Snrk…" Muffled laughter was heard from a mirror on the far wall. They saw a figure in it that had become far more familiar over the past several years.

"Jashin-sama!" Hidan called out in surprise and happiness, assuming that Jashin's own powers would already be up to keep any noise from escaping the room and prevent anyone from walking in on them. Then his face soured slightly. "Why the f*** were you laughing?"

Jashin grinned. "You're giving him your _heart_, huh?"

There were several seconds of silence after that, and then the boys' faces simultaneously colored, Hidan starting on a loud, embarrassed, and impassioned rant.

Jashin just threw back his head and laughed.

o.o.o.o.o

They were nine, and Draco was still playing to expectations, nodding and smiling along when he was told things, and pretending to agree to his parents' extremely bigoted views. Blaise didn't need to, because he'd already managed to show people that he functioned primarily on logic and money. Not on logic and money alone, but definitely to a significant extent.

"Muggle or not, they have money. Many have prestige. I am not going to try to kill off potential future customers. They are just as susceptible as wizards. Wizards are more gullible, and muggles more frivolous. They are a way to make a profit, just like wizards."

He waved away all questions about his thoughts on purist philosophy like that. He was brutally efficient when it came to money, and all the stepfathers and even his own mother gave up on educating him in muggle-hatred. His view on things was clinical, and he saw no difference between one group of people to exploit and another. He just focused on the money, and while the goblins at Gringotts didn't necessarily _like_ him, they certainly held respect for the boy. It may or may not have had something to do with the fact that they were also aware that he was a dead, reincarnated, really old shinobi—information that Jashin and Diamond may or may not have had any involvement in when it came down to it—but that had no bearing on their transactions.

Wonderful, wonderful transactions that both sides found to be extremely beneficial.

o.o.o.o.o

Draco nodded, a childish pout on his lips, as his mother told him to go into Madam Malkin's.

He discretely rolled his eyes as she told him that she'd be up the street looking at wands. Really, wands? What was the point when each wizard was suitable to one wand? He didn't think he would have fallen for it even if he really were an actual eleven-year-old. He knew she was probably just going up to Knockturn Alley, or maybe she'd just left to get a drink or something. She was doing something that her innocent son should have no contact with.

And of course, she'd left him and Madame Malkin with strict instructions on just what kind of clothing she wanted him to get. And of course, this meant that it would last about twice as long as if he were just getting normal robes like he was supposed to. And _of course_, she had to nag him about the bracelet again.

Narcissa didn't quite understand the bracelet that her son had started wearing when he was three. It was little more than a strip of black leather with some sort of shiny circle and triangle symbol inlaid on the inside of the wrist. There were a number of problems that Narcissa had with it: she didn't know where it came from; Draco seemed obsessed with it; he never took it off, whether it went with what he was wearing or not; lastly and most importantly, it reminded her of Grindelwald's symbol. For a family that had been suspected of Death Eater activity, and rightly so, this was not a good thing to carry around. Unluckily for her, Draco never cared, and vehemently defended his choice to wear the bracelet.

The bell chimed as another boy walked in, and Draco glanced out of the corner of his eye at the other. Average height, slight build, and the coloring were all quickly taken into account, and subsequently disregarded as boringly average.

He nodded towards the boy in acknowledgement. "First year?"

The boy nodded. "Yes. I'm Harry Potter. You?"

Draco raised an eyebrow, but did little else when he heard the name. "Draco Malfoy, and I'm a first year, too. Any idea on the houses?"

The boy, Harry, shook his head. "No. I do not believe I have any particular leanings. I would enjoy becoming a Gryffindor, though, because that is the house that my parents were in."

"My parents want me to be in Slytherin. I think I could make it there. Probably better than in any of the others." Draco mused.

"Why Slytherin?" Harry asked, glancing over through bored, half-lidded eyes. They were, by this point, conversing more out of politeness than any real interest.

"My family's been in Slytherin for centuries." Draco shrugged. "According to my parents, it's the only house fit for 'the scion of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Malfoy.'" His voice turned mocking towards the end. "I guess they might not object to Ravenclaw, but I'm not smart enough for that. They'd probably send three letters a day warning me against muggle-borns, anyway."

He rolled his eyes as he said that, but it had apparently caught Harry's attention. "What?"

Draco looked over. "Do you know anything about pureblood supremacy?"

Harry nodded, and Draco sighed. "My father says that anyone with less than pure blood shouldn't be allowed at Hogwarts, especially not muggleborns. My mother agrees with him."

Harry raised an eyebrow at that. "You don't seem to agree."

Draco snorted, happy to have someone other than Blaise that he could vent to without worrying about his parents somehow catching wind of it. "I don't. It's all a load of bulls***, if you ask me."

He raised a hand and ran it through his hair in exasperation. He froze as, a second later, a stream of amused Japanese streamed from the Potter boy. "That's good. From what I've heard from Kisame, it's rather a bit too much like the Kekkei Genkai fiascos back in the Elemental Countries. The civilians feared them; Kiri hated them; the other villages loved them if they had them, and Konoha practically revered them. I'd rather hoped to leave such nonsense behind when I was told that I'd be reborn in a new realm."

He sucked in a breath and turned to look at Harry. A tiny flare of chakra and his miniaturized scythe was in his sleeve, turned just so, so that it didn't cut him. He wasn't Draco anymore. He was Hidan of Yuugakure, S-rank criminal with a streak of rampant insanity. "Who…?"

Potter, or whoever he really was, turned and smiled at Hidan. A Sharingan appeared in each eye, spinning in the same hypnotic way that Hidan remembered. "It's nice to see you again, Hidan."

The breath hissed out, and Hidan reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Uchiha. At least tell me that I'm talking to Itachi and not Tobi."

"Hn." Probably Itachi, then, and he was _smirking_. "Have you found anyone else yet?"

Hidan glared, not caring that he was staring straight into a spinning Sharingan. He cursed Itachi quietly under his breath in English and a few other languages for a few seconds before replying in Japanese again. "Yeah, Kakuzu's the same age as us, first year; he's just a couple months older. Still a miser, and somehow got born to some gold digger lady with half a dozen different fortunes to her name by now. No word on anyone else."

Itachi shrugged and nodded, looking past Hidan. "I knew Kisame from my neighborhood, and he went last year and found Konan, Leader-sama, and Zetsu. Zetsu got split somehow, though, so he's actually a pair of twins on his own now."

Hidan nodded back. "So is Sharky still blue, then?"

"Yes, I am." Kisame spoke up from behind him. Hidan, in true ninja fashion, spun and swung his half-sized scythe at the blue boy, but it was half-hearted, since he realized who it was less than a quarter of the way through the swing. Kisame just ducked and then held out his hand to shake, which Hidan ignored, and introduced himself, in English, with his latter name. "Berilo Krahsson, and I'm pleased to meet you."

"Seriously! What is wrong with you people?" Hidan was speaking Japanese again, though what he really wanted to say was '_F*** you!"_

"We're reincarnated, formerly S-ranked, former criminal shinobi with access to magic." Kisame said cheerfully, ignoring Hidan's anger.

Hidan grit his teeth for a second, but calmed down as his bracelet warmed up a little, possibly in warning. He smirked at the two in front of him enjoying their on guard expressions. "I was right." He gloated. He _deserved_ to gloat.

The other two tilted their heads as Madam Malkin bustled in and started taking Kisame's measurements. Itachi asked the next question. "What were you right about that we doubted you on?"

Hidan let his irritation show for a second, but then wiped his face of emotion and everything else, pointing at the bracelet and the symbol on it.

"Oh." Kisame said, looking somewhat uncomfortable. He was obviously fishing for a new topic, and quickly asked, "So are you still immortal, then?"

Hidan scoffed. "Of course I am. If I wasn't, I'd be dead fifty times over by now. Kakuzu cuts of my head almost every time he sees me. Since my mother and his are friends, and they're convinced that we are too, it's inevitable that we see each other a lot."

"He still cuts your head off whenever you irritate him?" Itachi asked incredulously. "Isn't he worried that someone will see? Or at least about the blood stains?"

Hidan groaned inwardly, knowing that this would be a sensitive topic. "Do you know what a House Elf is?"

Their eyes darkened. Itachi spoke first. "I hope you don't approve of that."

Hidan tilted his head to the side, raising a hand and tilting it side-to side as well. "If he didn't like it, I wouldn't. The problem is that most House Elves love to work, so disapproving would actually make it worse for them. I don't approve of the abuse that my father puts him through, though."

Itachi frowned. "It just occurred to me that you're not being anywhere near as coarse as you were the last time I spoke with you."

Hidan snorted mirthlessly at that. "Malfoys aren't crude, apparently. If I could talk however I wanted to, I'd be cursing up a storm like a sailor whenever I talked. As it is…" He shrugged.

"You're done, dears." Madam Malkin shooed all three of them off the stools, and Hidan began to walk over to his mother.

"Goodbye, Potter, Krahsson." He saw his mother glance over when she heard the Potter name.

"I hope to see you at school, Malfoy."

"See ya, kid."

Hidan just waved with one hand and discreetly flipped them off with the other. Good thing his mother didn't notice.

o.o.o.o.o

"Oh, so I'll finally have intelligent company." Kakuzu mused.

"F*** you, a**hole." Hidan muttered. "We've gotten everyone but Deidara and Sasori. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

Kakuzu blinked in slight confusion. "What about Tobi and Orochimaru?"

"You mean Obito." Hidan corrected. "And remember: speak of the Devil, and he shall appear. If we pretend that they never existed, the s***s might not show up."

"Your oh-so-illustrious Jashin didn't tell you?" Kakuzu mocked.

"He's in this for the entertainment." Hidan deadpanned. "Ergo, the popcorn at half his visits."

Kakuzu rolled his eyes.

o.o.o.o.o

"C'mon, 'Kuzu." Hidan tugged his friend's sleeve. They'd ditched the so-called bodyguards that had been assigned by Lucius about half an hour earlier. Crabbe and Goyle were utterly useless. "We're going to go find the others."

Kakuzu smacked Hidan's hand away but followed along anyway. They heard a bored, bland voice coming from down the train's hall.

"Uchiha. It appears that Deidara was right after all."

Hidan shot Kakuzu a grin which was not returned, and hurried down the corridor to slam open the door and find some old _friends_.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: I just want to say that Jashin and Diamond will **_**not**_** be showing up as often as in this chapter, but they will pop up from time to time, usually sharing a box of popcorn. They are **_**NOT**_** romantically involved. They never will be. Diamond has a boyfriend, and Jashin's not interested in getting himself a girlfriend. They're just buddies, originally drinking buddies.**

**Aphrodisia Zabini is a name I've used before. If you can identify from where, you get a digital cookie.**

**I'm going outside of canon here, and just going to go and say that I wouldn't be surprised if one or two of Mrs. Zabini's husbands would have been abusive. They're rich and powerful; ergo, they're used to getting what they want. Due to Kakuzu killing them off before she could, she's also married a time or two more than she would have by this point in canon, which is why Hidan says half a dozen, while in canon, in HBP some five years after the comment, the number of dead had hit seven.**

**READ THIS:**** Alright, I've been getting questions about other former/somewhat Akatsuki members, including:**

**Team Taka  
Madara  
Obito  
Yahiko  
Orochimaru and Kabuto (can't have one without the other)  
And for the people requesting Madara, there's also the first and second Hokage, as well as Uzumaki Mito.**

**Okay, here's my answer: WAIT. I've decided on everything. I started writing this story over half a year ago. I know where I'm going with it. For some, you'll get an omake or something. Maybe soon, maybe not, but the point is that I've already decided where/when they all ended up. I did mention that this wasn't the only universe people ended up in after all, didn't I? There are other places they could have gone. Most of Konoha ended up in Twilight, after all. Fr***in' **_**Twilight**_**.**

**I can promise **_**one**_ **surprise addition next chapter, but none of you will be able to guess who it is unless I already told you, I guarantee. It **_**will**_** be with Sasori and Deidara, but due to the length, the next chapter was split into two, possibly three. It's already hit 12K, and I'm not even done with it yet.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix.**


	4. Puppet and Sculptor (Part One)

**A/N: From here on out, Japanese will either be there as itself, or translated to English as italics if it's too complicated for me. Some stuff will stay un-translated (I'm not bothering with Danna, for instance, or words like ninjutsu, genjutsu, and taijutsu) even in the italics, but that's a stylistic choice. Some lines will be only partly italicized, which means that they're switching back and forth, or speaking with emphasis. The following is the only 'example' there will be, because I'm pretty sure everything else is self-explanatory. If I decide to change something in the formatting, you will be notified, of course.**

"Anyone hungry?" English.

"Itadakimasu." Japanese as itself.

"_Why is Zetsu trying to eat me?!_" Japanese translated.

"**Because you look tasty.**" Various non-human creatures, or emphasis where italics would cause confusion. Kuro-Zetsu's speech will _not_ be in bold due to now being his own person.

**Also, Deidara says 'un' when speaking Japanese, and 'yeah' when speaking English. We cool? Cool.**

**ARTISTIC LICENSE: This is the first major usage of it. For various reasons, I've moved up most of muggle tech and media to modern-day levels. One of those reasons is that they can casually set up video chats in the Ninja-verse, which was unlikely in the 80s and 90s in our world, and I don't want for the Akatsuki to regress technologically. The other reason is because of one specific movie (Megamind, which would have been impossible to make in the 80s, where it's placed here), and several computer programs (specifically robot programs and vocal programs like Vocaloid and UTAU). If you hadn't noticed, I already made a few anachronisms in the last chapter, with the movie references made there (to the same movie, in fact: Megamind. I was on a bit of a kick when I came up with this plot change, but it's a good one, if you'll take the road far enough).**

**The violinist that Ginny sees is an expy of Lindsey Stirling. If you wish to find her YouTube videos, her username is lindseystomp.**

o.o.o.o.o

The Weasley brothers, growing up, were a little confused by their youngest brother. He was quiet, and often calculating, to the point that Bill and Charlie joked that he would be a Slytherin, even back when he was only two years old.

He would just stare at them, eyes half lidded, a frown that was almost a pout on his face.

He got along well enough with all his family. He was polite, and at times detached, but it slowly became _very_ apparent that he was fiercely protective as well. When Ginny was born and he was allowed into the hospital room, his eyes seemed to fill with a type of wonder that made him actually look his age for once. He even seemed to glare at the Healer once or twice as they came to check on his mother and sister, though at his size he couldn't do much.

He also glared whenever his brothers, Fred and George especially, teased him about his puppets. They called them dolls, called them girly toys. He called them puppets, and marionettes, and didn't even stumble over the words as others his age would have.

Percy liked him. Unlike Fred and George, Ron was quiet and didn't bother him. Even though he was only seven years old, when Ron was three, Percy was already adorably precocious. He acted as though the world was on his shoulders, and if Ron didn't mess around and make loud noises like most three-year-olds while Percy was reading, then it was all the better.

Fred and George thought he was too much like Percy at first. Then, when they were five and he was three, they went a little too far in their teasing. The next night they found their beds short-sheeted, and when they fixed that, filled with itching powder. They'd turned and seen Ron standing in the door, with a lazy smirk and bored eyes.

"You can tell, but no one will believe that it was me."

They stopped thinking he was such a stick in the mud after that.

Charlie thought he could see something in his eyes once in a while, something that he couldn't explain. Charlie would find Ron searching through his books once in a while, the ones on animals, which Charlie adored. It was rather creepy how often Ron would look at pictures of desert animals, especially the venomous ones.

"My favorite is the scorpion." Ron had said, pointing to a picture of one with a bored—bored, always, always bored; he almost looked stoned, though Charlie never said—expression on his face.

Creepy, but cute. He would look in on his little brother and have to remind himself of what the boy was like sometimes, when he was asleep, and especially when he was around little Ginny. Ginny seemed to hold some special place in his heart, one that softened him and brought out the protective instinct of every brother, older or not. Sometimes, when he looked at her, there was a look of such wonder on his face, like he hadn't ever imagined the possibility of a younger sibling, and that she was a miracle in and of herself.

Bill… was amused. Ron, he noticed, had not grown jealous of the newest child's arrival, as every son before him had. He had simply grown the desire to be near and, in a manner most consternating, to protect his little sister. Jealousy was not a thing of possibility to the young boy. As the eldest, Bill knew what it was like to wish to protect those in the family that were younger than you, but not a single one of his brothers had shown this… _instinct_ so early on. It was heartening, even if Ron's tendency to act as though he were an old man was not.

Ginny adored her older brother. He was always there, and he did whatever made her happy. Now, little Ginny was very young, but she would develop the idea of doing almost anything for her brother as she got older, so devoted they were.

Serena Lovegood first brought Luna for a play-date with Ginny when Ron was four, and the two girls were three.

o.o.o.o.o

Sasori was practicing with his puppets. It was annoying, really, that he'd lost so much skill, but he supposed it was a small price to pay to be alive again.

The marionette's body jerked around, not yet moving with the fluid motions he had grown accustomed to creating in his days as a shinobi.

A knock came at the door, and the marionette came quickly to his hand. Ginny was on the other side of the door, along with a chakra he didn't quite recognize. He let the age, the stress, the ridiculous intelligence leak away, and put up the not-quite-façade that was how he acted around his little sister.

"Won?" She still spoke with the lisp that all little kids had, and stepped hesitantly into the room. She, along with all the other Weasley children, was strangely wary of entering the room with the ghoul above it. At least, that's what they attributed their leeriness to. It was probably just the fact that they often walked in on Sasori, rather than Ron.

"Won, I got a new fwend." She stepped further into the room, pulling someone along behind her.

The girl was small, almost as small as Ginny, with dark blonde hair that already reached the middle of her back, despite her young age. She had remarkably large blue eyes, though they were definitively pale, with a sort of far-away look to them that he couldn't quite place. The eyes were focused on him for a second, and then dropped to her gloved hands. These hands, encased in fingerless black cloth, were in the process of wringing themselves like extraordinarily wet bed sheets.

"'Dith ith Luna." Ginny tugged the girl further into the room. "She live-th a few kiwomel… kilometahth away."

Ron stood up slowly and walked over to the girl. He stuck out his hand in a decidedly un-childish gesture. "I'm Ron."

He, of course, had no lisp.

Luna nodded, and quickly shook his hand, though she let go remarkably quickly. "I'm Luna, yeah."

She bit her lip, looking around.

"…You play with dolls, yeah?" She didn't have much of a lisp either. That verbal tic, however, did tickle at his memory, calling up the memory of another rather… _flighty_ blonde that he'd worked with for years.

But that was all in the past.

"Puppets." He said, and there was no room for argument.

The girl blinked and tilted her head to the side. "Okay."

The simple acceptance was just that: acceptance. She didn't bother with either agreeing or disagreeing, just accepted what he'd said.

Her eyes drifted to the side a little, and grew less focused. "There are a lot of Wrackspurts around your head, yeah. More like the ones around the grown-ups. Kids don't usually have that many, yeah."

She walked closer, and her eyes grew less focused. Ron simply raised an eyebrow. He couldn't quite bring himself to really care.

"Radishes help, you know, yeah." She said, wafting a hand through the air next to his head. "It's not good for you to have a lot of Wrackspurts, because they make your head all fuzzy, yeah."

He reached up and grabbed her wrist, tugging her hand away from his head. She frowned, but looked down at the ground after a few seconds of Ron just staring at her. She pulled her hand away from him, pouting a little.

"Bye, Won." Ginny said, and pulled Luna out of the room with her. The blonde followed without question.

Ron went back to being Sasori, once again manipulating his puppets as he was wont to do.

o.o.o.o.o

Molly took Luna in for a play-date again when Serena needed to go to the Ministry of Magic to register a spell she'd developed.

Luna and Ginny were playing rather calmly, but then the twins showed up.

You can see why this might be a problem.

It wasn't that bad at first. They just talked in turn, twin-speak and all to try and confuse the poor girls, but things took a downward spiral when they got a little too curious.

"GIVE ME BACK MY GLOVE, YEAH!"

Ron's head turned in the direction of the noise, and he quickly slipped downstairs to see what was going on.

Luna was angry. She wasn't crying, exactly, but her face was an angry red. She was hopping up and down and trying to get the glove that the six-year-old Fred was holding out of her reach.

"GIVE! IT! BACK! YEAH!"

"What are you doing?" Ron asked, standing at the foot of the stairs. Molly, bless her heart, was outside hanging laundry, with Celestina Warbeck playing on the radio. She assumed that one of the children would run to come and get her if there was trouble. Troublesome for her, then, that they didn't.

"I want my glove back, yeah!" Luna said glaring at the twins, but more at Fred than George.

"It was just—" Fred began.

"—a joke, Ronnie." George finished, grinning as he placated his little brother.

Ron stared at them through half-lidded eyes. "I'm getting Bill."

"No!" George yelled out.

"Here are your gloves, Luna, dear." Fred said, and the twins rushed off.

Neither of them wanted to get _Bill_ angry. He was _the_ cool older brother. If he was unhappy with you, all the other kids would shun you for a week.

"Thanks, yeah." Luna was looking at the ground near Ron's feet, but she was still obviously talking to him.

"…Don't mention it." He walked back upstairs.

"Luna? Why did you want you' glove back tho muchth?"

"Not telling."

"Okay…"

Sasori tried not to make assumptions. The verbal tic, hidden palms… what if it really was him?

Well, her?

He got his answer just a couple of hours later.

o.o.o.o.o

_Knock, knock, knock_.

Ron looked up from the book he'd been reading. "Come in."

It was a wonder no one had figured out he wasn't a normal kid yet. They may have realized that he wasn't "normal," but they had not figured out that he wasn't _normal_.

"Your mom said to call you down for lunch." Luna took a small step into the room, eyes on the ground. Those eyes, still a little hazy—really, how _did_ she do that?—slowly wandered up and around the room, finally landing on the small, very small, puppet next to him. It had, though hard to see, a scorpion engraved lightly on the surface.

Luna bit her lip as she looked around the room a little more, growing more and more anxious.

Ron… no, not Ron, _Sasori_ was almost sure now. He closed the book and set it to the side.

"Gaki." No, he couldn't say this in English. It wouldn't work otherwise.

Those pale blue eyes, dreamy to the extreme, flew open and noticeably cleared. "Sasori no Danna?"

"_In the flesh, apparently_." Japanese, now.

"Danna!" Deidara—obviously—flew across the room and tackled him into a hug. "_I'm so sorry about the stuff I said under Edo Tensei, un! It was just that I'd had to deal with Tobi and now we were working for him and he wouldn't shut up while I was alive and he was more annoying to me than I ever was to you, un, and he didn't die in my blast even though I was thinking apologies at him as I died for killing him 'cause he wasn't suicidal like I was, un, and I'm pretty sure that the Edo Tensei thing turned us all into a complete dumba**es 'cause I was doin' stupid stuff and you threatened to kill me even though we were both already dead, un, and I di—_"

A hand clamped down on her mouth. "_Brat. Stop. Take a few deep breaths. We can discuss this later_."

She nodded, eyes still a little teary.

"Come on. You said it was time to eat, didn't you?" He walked off to the door.

"Yeah!" She bounced off after him.

o.o.o.o.o

_Later that night._

Sasori was the one that woke, not Ron. The same person? Yes. Referring to one as opposed to the other, however, was more of a mode to him than a separate persona entirely. In 'normal mode' Ron was a regular child, if a little too mature and irritable. Sasori was what came when the boy was in 'shinobi mode' and any time he was woken in the middle of the night, it was the shinobi that came to the front, not the young boy.

It's a good thing that the girl that woke him was a former shinobi as well, in that case. In the house that he now lived, Sasori was careful about attacking anyone. Of course, this didn't mean that he would take kindly to a being awoken by a diminutive pyromaniac. He still had his instincts.

"Danna!" Deidara cried out. "_It's just me, un!"_

"_Shut up!"_ Sasori hissed, putting a hand on her mouth. He'd pushed her down to the floor when she first shook him awake, and wrenched one arm behind her back. "_There are people in the house. We can't have them hearing you squealing your pathetic little head off!_"

She nodded mutely. He took his hand off her mouth, and let her go. Sasori quickly regretted this as she tackled him into another hug, and this time she didn't let go. Her arms were wrapped around his waist, squeezing tight as she buried her crying face into his torso. Sasori was a little unsure of how to react. After all, he was sitting on the floor with a sobbing three-year-old in his lap.

"_Brat. Brat. That's, that's enough."_ He halfheartedly tried to push her off, but didn't exactly make much headway. She still wouldn't let go, and he didn't really mind as much as he pretended.

"_Hug me back first, un."_ Her voice was a little muffled because her face was still buried in his chest, but it was clear enough for him to understand.

Sasori sighed, and after a few seconds of deliberation, lightly put his arms around her.

"_Tighter. Make it a real hug, Danna. I want a real hug."_

He acquiesced; no matter how awkward it made him feel, he would do it, if it would just get her off of him.

Deidara finally moved back after she felt the arms around her tighten lightly for little more than a second. She wiped her eyes and moved to sit down next to Sasori, a little too close for comfort, in his opinion.

"_I missed you, un_." Deidara was looking down at her hands again, wringing them again, shy again.

"_I could tell."_ He smirked a little. "_You kept me waiting a long time. I'm not very patient._"

"You're being a bit of an a***hole, Danna, yeah."

"_Try to stick to Japanese, while we're not by other people."_

"_Why?"_

"_It's… comforting._" He admitted. "_It's been a long time since I've actually talked to someone like this, even if it's just you."_

Deidara pouted. "_Mean, Danna, un."_

He ignored her. "_So you snuck out. Did you at least leave behind a clone of some sort?"_

Deidara looked away. "_Yes…"_

Sasori grabbed her chin and turned her to look at him, eyes narrowed in a manner far different from his usual half lidded glare. _"You did leave a clone, right?"_

"_Yes, un…"_ She pouted. "_It's just…"_

"_What?"_ He asked.

"_I figured that it needed to be able to react if my parents looked in, so I used a Shadow Clone, un_." Deidara pouted.

Sasori stared in mild consternation. "_What's wrong with Shadow Clones?"_

"_I learned them from Uchiha, un_." She ground out.

Sasori looked at her for a few seconds, and then smacked the back of her head.

"Itai!" She cried out, grabbing it. _"What was that for?"_

"_That was years ago. It hasn't even happened in this life. Let it go."_ He told her. "_And be quieter."_

She huffed and crossed her arms. "_Fine, un."_

There was a couple seconds of silence.

"_Danna?"_ Deidara sat next to him on the floor by his bed, and she had shifted closer. Sasori blamed it on the instincts of the childish body; as a three-year-old, Deidara would naturally gravitate towards people and try to, for lack of a better word, snuggle.

"_What?"_

"_How are we gonna practice, un? Like, taijutsu partners and stuff, un."_ She clarified at his nonplussed look. _"I know we can both practice our ninjutsu and genjutsu on our own, but we can't really practice taijutsu right without a partner, right, un?"_

He thought for a few moments. _"It would be… problematic for us to try meeting at night like this. You could continue coming here under the guise of visiting Ginny, but then we would have to do something with her as well."_

"_Why not?" _Deidara moved away again and looked at him with her head tilted.

"_What?"_ Sasori looked at her out of the corner of his eye.

She leaned forward, turning her head to get a fuller look at his face. "_Why not train her? I haven't known her long and even I can tell that she adores you, so if you tell her not to talk about it to anyone, un, she probably won't. We can train as a group and maybe even teach her a little Japanese, un…"_

Sasori looked at her for a few seconds, and then leaned his head back and crossed his arms, closing his eyes in thought.

"_That… might work. But Ginny's only three years old, she might slip."_

"_So? We're both good enough at genjutsu to hide a civilian's memories, and they'll probably just think it's a game, like when little girls pretend to marry their stuffed animals to each other, un."_

There was silence for a few seconds.

"_Stuffed animals?"_

"Shut up, yeah. _I have this second cousin, a couple years older than me, and she made me play the flower girl for whatever reason, un."_

Sasori shrugged his shoulder, moving to the side a little to avoid Deidara as she let herself fall back against the bed again. They were still sitting on the floor.

"_I suppose we could._"

"_Besides, I'll be getting a nice friend out of the deal, un. Ginny's pretty cool for a three year old, and really nice, considering she has six older brothers, un."_

"_I'm flattered that you think of me that way._" Sasori snarked, rolling his eyes.

"_I didn't mean you._ What about Fred and George?" She asked, tilting her head as she asked the question in English.

"_Acknowledged._" Sasori said, nodding a little.

There was silence again for a few seconds, and Deidara sighed.

"_I should probably go back now, un._" She got up, heading towards the window.

"_Alright, then._"

She looked back, dithering. _"Erm, Danna? Can I… can I have another hug?"_

Her eyes were wide and hopeful, though that dazed look was coming back into her eyes. It was rather creepy, to be honest.

He sighed and got up, giving her the hug she'd asked for. His hug was light and short, though Deidara's was surprisingly strong, considering her current age.

"Ja ne, Danna."

"Goodbye."

o.o.o.o.o

"Japanethe?" Ginny asked. "Ithn't Japan weally faw away?"

"Yes, but we'll teach you anyway." Ron said—more Sasori than Ron right now, but still Ron to Ginny.

"And we'll teach you how to muggle duel, too, yeah!" Deidara grinned at her. Oh, this was going to be _fun_.

"Why?" Ginny asked.

"Learning is fun and it'll help you in life." Sasori deadpanned.

Ginny blinked at Deidara as the blonde smacked her forehead.

"Okay."

Deidara smiled and hugged her—Sasori twitched, as Deidara had really been going overboard on hugging him recently, so any hug was a little irritating—and then pulled back and pointed at Ginny's nose.

"But you can't tell your mom, yeah. You gotta tell her that we're just playing, yeah?"

Ginny nodded quickly, and looked to her brother, who nodded as well, albeit far more slowly. Ginny grinned.

"Okay, then!"

"First thing's first," Sasori said, and really, he'd been wanting to have someone call him this for a while.

"When it's just the three of us, call me Nii-san."

Ginny tilted her head to the side, opened her mouth, and then closed it again as Deidara whispered something into her ear with a little mischievous grin. Sasori grew suspicious.

"Nii-tan?"

He felt his heart thump in his chest.

D*** it, Deidara.

For the first time in a while, Sasori didn't smirk.

He just smiled at his little sister and pulled her into a hug.

In the background, Deidara smiled too, with fondness, though there was a touch of amusement too. Ginny's confused expression was just too cute.

o.o.o.o.o

Ron knew his family, and knew them well. It didn't have much to do with the spying seals in each room, or the defensive seals, or… alright, a large part of the reason he knew his family so well was because of his paranoia and all the observance seals he'd put up everywhere to make sure nothing happened. Of course, this also meant that he frequently saw his family members when they thought they were alone and let their public masks fall off. And with Fred and George's frequent pranks, the paranoia was almost justified… as was checking his food for poison and less-than-desirable, less-than-edible substances.

_Totally_ justified.

That, however, is beside the point. The point is that, out of all his family members, he knew Ginny the best. And she was closer to knowing the true him than anyone else.

Every few nights, Ron would tell her a story. Some nights, he told her about the Juubi, the Rikudo Sennin, and the bijuu that resulted from that. Others, he told her stories of the famous Kage from all the villages, even the Sandaime Kazekage (that b******). Occasionally, he told her stories about the wars, and eventually even told her a little about Akatsuki.

She lapped it all up.

It wasn't surprising. Shinobi history was like a complicated children's book, or an elaborate painting. It was filled with political intrigue, with betrayal, with grief, yes, but it also had things that almost all little kids wanted to hear about. There were forbidden romances. There were amazing fights and even better deaths. There were feats beyond imagination and powerful forces of both good and evil. There were groups that straddled the line, like Nagato's vision of Akatsuki, which strove to keep the peace through grand-scale violence. Ginny loved it. There were all the girly aspects that she liked, and all the boyish things that she loved, having grown up with six brothers and Luna Lovegood.

It was his way of desensitizing her to the idea of shinobi. If he didn't…

o.o.o.o.o

He was five. In fact, he'd only turned five a few days earlier, and was still riding the birthday high, his real age notwithstanding.

Sasori blinked up at the redheaded girl with the ridiculously popping bubblegum. She was short, shorter than he had been in his first life. The blue-haired man next to her was quite a bit taller, but he seemed content to just lean against the wall behind her and smirk at the scene in amusement.

Unfortunately, Sasori recognized him. Beside him, Deidara did too. Ginny… did not. They still hadn't explained things to her completely—they would wait a few more years for that—but that may have been a good thing in this case.

"Yo." Jashin nodded at them.

"Hello, my little toys!" Diamond giggled and clapped her hands together.

Sasori frowned, noting the fact that Deidara had stepped protectively in front Ginny with him. Good.

"_Why are you here?_"

"Eh, eh, eh! Respect is mandatory!" Diamond asserted.

"Since when?" Jashin muttered, ignoring the pouty glare that she shot him.

"Fine, then. _Oh, mighty Agent Diamond and Jashin-sama, why have you come down to earth to bestow thy wonderful visages upon us pathetic mortals?_" Sasori deadpanned.

Diamond began to giggle, while Jashin snorted and Deidara muffled her small laughs. Ginny had begun to ignore them all, having sat down to draw in the ground with a blunt wooden kunai that Sasori had made to help her learn to aim. After Jashin's hair stopped catching her attention, she lost interest completely.

"_Okay… I would have just settled for you saying hi before questioning us, but that works too. Anyway…_" Diamond grinned widely and pulled a scroll from her belt. She tossed it to Sasori. "Catch."

He caught it easily. "_What is it?_"

"_Your puppets._"

His eyes widened and he looked down at the scroll.

"_With a little_ Easter Egg _hidden inside._" She winked. "_Good luck with it. Most of your old puppet-making tools are in there too. Oh, and Dei-chan, here's some clay until you find a place to get some more. It's the really good kind that we know you love to use._"

She tossed Deidara a different scroll, and spun on her heel, walking off.

"Come on, Shin-chan. We've got four buffalo and a field of alfalfa to relocate!" Diamond punched a fist into the air in excitement, and disappeared in a tornado of blood.

Jashin looked at the spot where she'd been for a few seconds and then shrugged. "Whatever. Bye."

A familiar circle and triangle glowed beneath Jashin, and he sank into the portal that appeared beneath him.

Sasori looked down at his scroll. "_What did she mean by_ Easter Egg?"

o.o.o.o.o

Sasori snuck into his father's shed. It had taken him half a year, but Sasori and Deidara had managed to use repeated earth jutsu to create a small workshop beneath the shed. Seals at the entrance prevented anyone but them and Ginny from finding their way in, genjutsu and general trickery hiding the entrance from view. It had been completed several months prior to the giving of the scrolls.

He stood there now with the scroll in his hand, and Deidara behind him. It was nighttime, so Ginny was in bed, but the two Akatsuki members were now ready to see what the "Easter Egg" was.

Sasori slowly unfurled the scroll, and slowly leaked some chakra into the sign that said Hiruko.

She came out in a puff of smoke, same as always. She was… perfect. All the damage that had been done to her was fixed, and he smiled as he ran his hands over the wood.

His own body was next. It was a little creepy to be looking at it like that, creepier than during the Edo Tensei, especially since Deidara grinned and gave the body a hug while smiling directly at the Sasori that was alive.

He rolled his eyes and moved on to the Sandaime Kazekage.

At this point, the circumstances got a little problematic. You see, this puppet had had its soul returned.

"_Hello, Akasuna-san_." The Kazekage spoke, and the two got a feeling that he would be smirking, or maybe grinning maliciously if he had been capable of doing so.

"…" Sasori stared, his mind blank. Deidara blinked for a few seconds, and then began to laugh and laugh and laugh.

"_Relax, I'm not allowed to do anything; no revenge for me. The only reason they even gave me for this was that the tiny redhead wanted entertainment, and I apparently fit the bill_." He leaned back against the table. "_Is there any way you could modify my head so I could actually make expressions?_"

Sasori nodded dumbly, his mind running on autopilot. Deidara continued to snicker.

"_Great. Also, I don't know the local language, but they apparently included some language books in there, so…"_

Deidara had at this point realized that Sasori was in a bit of a shock, and took the scroll out of his twitching hands. She unsealed the part that was marked with the kanji for 'books' and handed them over.

"_Great."_

Deidara looked around for a few seconds and then shrugged. "_I guess you can just act as the guard dog for the work shop for now, un. You probably aren't going to need to any sleep more than Danna did when he was a puppet, and he only needed a few hours a week_._ I'll take Sasori no Danna back up to his room while he wakes back up, un. Bye!"_

She left, more or less skipping while she carried Sasori over her head. The Sandaime Kazekage decided to crack open one of his new books.

o.o.o.o.o

Ron was six, and the girls were five, when Ginny first saw what she wanted.

It was a bit complicated, you see. Had Sasori and Deidara not been reborn, and Ron and Luna simply been Ron and Luna, Ginny would have given up on it after a few months. The Weasleys were quite poor, so they wouldn't have been able to spare all the money. After a year or so, she would have forgotten about it entirely.

However, Ron _was_ Sasori, so things happened quite a bit differently.

You see, on Ginny's fifth birthday, she, Ron, and Luna were taken to a cheap concert—and as cheap as it was, it still wasn't cheap enough for all the Weasleys to go at once—that was taking place in a nearby village. On the stage had been a woman playing the violin, dancing and even singing once in a while. She'd played several different genres of music, and even a song or two that they vaguely recognized from the radios playing in muggle shops that they sometimes visited.

Ginny loved it. She begged her parents for a violin for months, but unfortunately, even if they'd bought the violin, lessons would have pushed the budget a little too much.

Sasori thought otherwise.

You may have noticed by now, but Sasori was very fond and extremely protective of Ginny. Understand, dear readers, that he'd wanted a little sibling in his first life before his parents died, and then gave up on it once he had learnt of their demise. Wanting a little sibling is something most kids do, and shinobi children often wanted little siblings to have someone younger than them to protect in addition to the regular reasons. Ergo, Ginny herself was a form of wish fulfillment for him.

He would protect her from anything, and even though he wouldn't quite _get_ her anything, he would definitely try for something this important to her. He had until December, Christmas, to get her a violin.

Well, he was known for his puppets and his intellect for a reason, after all. He was good with woodworking, so making a violin wouldn't be too much of a stretch for him. He could get the wood from a nearby forest if necessary, though the strings would be problematic. The rest could be made from scratch, but he would definitely need to buy strings at some point, which meant he needed to earn some money.

Shadow clones. Henge. Small, carved figurines. A small tourist shop he'd located in Ottery St. Catchpole.

Soon, he was sending a clone, under a henge to look as he had in his former life, to the village every week with a number of small wooden statuettes to sell off. It wasn't a much, not compared to the amount that he had earned in his first life, but little would be able to compare to the 'salary' of an S-rank nukenin.

It was enough, though. A book from the small library in the village explained the process used to hand-make a violin, and he'd be able to speed it up with certain seals. Most seals halted time completely for whatever was put in to preserve freshness in the cases where it was necessary; fresh food was hard to come by in the field unless you had some in a scroll. But just as time could be frozen—not that it would do any good for something to be eternal in such a manner if it couldn't do anything and time was frozen for it as well, especially since the paper of the scroll wasn't going to last forever and would eventually disintegrate anyway—time could be sped up with the help of seals. Anything for the violin that required letting it sit and 'mature' in its own way could be sped up with the help of seals if necessary.

If Sasori—Ron was just a child, he couldn't make a violin from scratch—wanted to do this correctly, he'd need practice. Christmas was, of course, in December, so he had about four months to try and make it. He'd probably need at least several practice creations to get them up to his standards. It had taken him several years to learn how to make puppets of the highest caliber. He had more experience now, so it would likely only take him a few tries to make the violin as he should.

He was right, of course. His first two tries had been mediocre at best, though he suspected that for a child's hands and body, being self-taught via book, and the very small time-frame that he had been given, they were exceptional.

His third try was finished by early November, and taken to a local music store by his henged-clone self for perusal and appraisal. It was good, but not quite the highest possible caliber. Sasori had asked what would make it better, and taken such thoughts into account. His fourth try was taken to a different music store, a second-hand one, and deemed good enough quality to sell, which he did, along with the first three, though for much lower prices than the fourth. The fifth, he had given to Ginny for Christmas.

She adored it.

It had taken his parents a lot of convincing, but they eventually accepted the fact that he somehow had made the violin himself. They decided that his accidental magic must have somehow interfered to help him. He didn't feel like correcting them.

Luna, though, _Deidara_… the girl had ruthlessly teased him about the effort it had taken him to learn to make the instrument. He had eventually asked her if she was only bugging him about it because she wanted something herself, which lead to a comic pout-fest, etcetera, etcetera.

Really, Deidara just enjoyed p***ing him off.

Ginny learned to play, self-taught though she was. She wasn't a prodigy, no, but she learned.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: This is not the end of Deidara and Sasori's introduction. There's another two chapters coming up, but I wanted to include two things first:**

**The violin.**

**The Sandaime.**

**The violin is actually in preparation for a different plot twist, one that I've been planning for a while. It may annoy some of you, but I'm confident that you'll be satisfied with the end result if you just wait long enough. People have told me that it's a good plan, and I'd like to think that they're not just sugarcoating.**

**Okay, now the Sandaime.**

**How many of you expected him to be the surprise addition I alluded to last chapter? I'm fairly certain the answer is less than five, all of whom knew beforehand. If there's anyone that managed to guess, then I applaud you, because this was a planned yet preposterous plot point. I hope you enjoyed it, so far as that goes.**

**Remember two things, people, please:**

**One, I plan everything. You will frequently get an answer of "Just trust me, I know what I'm doing," if you ask questions about the future or make requests for characters. I have been planning this story since long before posting the first chapter, and I have almost every year planned out. Don't request for certain characters to be added in certain positions, particularly those listed last chapter. I'm not going to listen, because those decisions were made long before you even started reading (they've been finalized since at least August 2012, I think).**

**Two, I update on a schedule. Without a schedule, I **_**will**_** get lazy and stop writing as frequently. It's why I don't update a new chapter as soon as I've written it here. Don't ask for more frequent updates, because I have a system, and it's worked so far for me. The system is the schedules and cycles list on my profile.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**

**(The Megamind, Vocaloid, and UTAU references/plots are showing up next chapter. They're part of the same plan as the violin is.)**


	5. Puppet and Sculptor (Part Two)

**A/N: There will be more music references here, though the only ones that are actually pertinent are the Naruto themes and the Phantom of the Opera, so don't worry yourselves over it.**

**In other news, I love writing the Sandaime Kazekage. He's hilarious.**

**Oh, and prepare for WAFF. If you empathize with characters a lot… you may want to get a handkerchief. Or something. Because you'll probably cry.**

o.o.o.o.o

"_Can you make any other instruments?"_

Sasori glanced up at the Sandaime Kazekage. "_Why do you ask?_"

The puppet shrugged, face unconcerned.

Sasori had eventually gotten around to fixing the Sandaime's face, allowing him to express emotion, if not quite so wide a range as when he'd been alive.

"_I'm bored_." The puppet deadpanned. "_I've learned the language, and now there is absolutely nothing to do. Puppetry doesn't interest me, and developing any of my techniques further than they had been when I died would likely result in the nearby landscape being destroyed, or at the very least your workshop. I need something to do._"

Sasori nodded, only partly paying attention as he carefully engraved his personal scorpion onto the back of a new puppet. It was, oddly enough, a dancer puppet, specifically a life-sized ballerina, with small springs and elastic cords in the joints to hold it in whichever pose it was moved into. After all the fuss Deidara had made about the violin, he'd decided on revenge by rival art. Sure, she'd probably love this birthday present, even if she didn't consider it true art, but it would make him feel better, and that was the important thing, right?

"_If I _were_ to make an instrument for you, and I'm not saying I will, what would you like?"_

"_An organ_."

The answer was said with such quickness and surety that it actually made Sasori pause for a second. "_What?_"

The Kazekage shrugged. "_It's really easy to make them sound terrifying. Same thing goes for pianos, but they're pretty similar to play, so it's not that big of a deal to learn._"

Sasori stared at him. _"That is… extremely childish._"

"_Do you have a point?"_

o.o.o.o.o

Ginny stared at the man that was in her brother's workshop.

Well, she said he was a man. But honestly? He was a puppet.

"Are you going to keep staring?" The Kazekage found it rather cute, how the girl squeaked and quickly hid behind her brother at his words. He also found it amusing that said brother looked exasperated and fond, rather than annoyed.

"Daddy said to never trust anything if you can't see where it keeps its brain." Ginny recited, her gaze having dropped nervously to the ground.

The Sandaime Kazekage chuckled, leaning back a little as he did. "That's usually a good policy. Then again, I have a head, don't I?" He tapped his temple, a hollow drumming emitting from the wood. Thankfully, his lack of a brain didn't actually make him incapable of thinking. Though it may have been to blame for his terribly difficult time learning this infernal language called English.

(The facts that he could already speak it fluently after only several months and that the language was generally considered a difficult one to learn were discarded in irritation and puerility.)

(Especially since he only learned it so quickly because there was absolutely _nothing_ else to do down here.)

Ginny nodded, but bit her lip and glanced at her brother. He pushed her forward, "Don't be shy, imouto. He's just an old wooden man."

Let's see, he couldn't call himself by his title yet, at least, not around the girl, and he didn't like his real name, like, at all, so… "Tell you what, you can call me Sanka, okay?"

Ginny scrunched up her nose (Aw~!), and looked back at Ron. "That means, um…"

"Participation, or joining." It was an odd choice, but… oh. Sandaime Kazekage. Well, it worked, he supposed.

"Oh." She turned back to the Kazekage, face held in an adorable mask of determination. She stuck her hand out, and looked him right in the eye. "I'm Ginny."

The Sandaime was calm on the outside, smiling slightly as he shook Ginny's hand. On the inside, he was squealing over this adorable kid. She was just so _cute~!_

o.o.o.o.o

Ron was seven, and the girls were six, when Serena Lovegood passed away in early November of 1987.

Sasori found Deidara on the roof the day after the funeral. The Weasley house was taller than her own, and thus preferable to use as a perch of sorts. Deidara had possessed that habit long before Sasori ever met him in the first life, and she still possessed it in this one. She liked to stand and sit on things to make her higher up. Tree branches, rooftops, windowsills, they were all fair game; she even occasionally sat on the dinner table instead of a chair, just because she liked being up off the ground as far as possible. Sasori attributed it to her love of flying, or maybe it was the other way around. She held no interest in Quidditch, but the brooms were as close to her old ways as she could get without arousing suspicion.

"Deidara?"

She didn't answer, or even move, but a flicker of chakra, so very, very slight, indicated that she had heard him. She was hugging her knees to her chest tightly, her chin tucked in behind them as far as her nose would allow, just staring at the rising sun.

"_You know, you'll catch a cold if you stay out here in your pajamas too long._" Sasori settled down next to her. His legs were crossed, and his chin was resting on one fist, the elbow of which was, in turn, resting on his knee.

"_Don't care, un._" Deidara's voice was muffled, and she barely blinked as she kept staring out at the horizon. She had hardly moved at all.

She did, however, show signs of life as she felt the coat settle around her shoulders. She jerked, her head turning quickly towards the man, the boy, the shinobi that she'd known for longer than she had technically been alive. Said boy had his free hand up, though he didn't even glance her way, and faintly glowing strands dissipated as he relinquished his control over the article of clothing that he'd just loaned her.

"_Well, you should care._" He stared at the horizon, the beginnings of a smirk showing signs of growing on his face, if only barely.

She just sighed, moving back to the position she'd occupied before, tugging the coat closer around her shoulders.

They stayed like that in silence for several minutes, watching the sun as it came up and hearing a few roosters crow.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Sasori muttered.

"No." Deidara shook her head, and repeated the phrase in Japanese. "Iie."

Sasori nodded, and waited a few more minutes. And outlet of air alerted him when Deidara finally let go of the barriers she'd been holding up.

"It's just," She gulped, switching languages to try again. "_It's just… she died doing what she loved, right, un? Experimenting with charms. And she even went out with a bang, un. So…_"

Sasori finally understood what was bothering Deidara so much more than he had expected. "_You miss her even though she died the way you did, and still want to?_"

Deidara nodded, the tears and sniffles now building. "_I shouldn't, un. I'm a shinobi, through and through. I shouldn't be so sensitive, un. I shouldn't be crying because someone died as art, un. I shouldn't be crying over a woman that was a… a replacement at best, un! I shouldn't!_"

"But you do and you are." The words were accompanied by a pair of arms that settled around the young blonde's shoulders.

She leaned into the hug, still sniffling. "Why, yeah? Why do I care so much, danna?"

He was quiet for a few seconds. "Brat… Gaki…_ What were your parents like in your original life?_"

Deidara shrugged, small shoulders just bony enough to dig into Sasori's arms a little. "_My mother died in childbirth, un. Dad died on a mission during the war when I was two. I don't remember them at all, un."_

"_Really?_" Sasori adjusted his hold on her. "_Who raised you?_"

"_I was raised by my cousin for a few years, and she's the one that taught me clan techniques and things, un. She had a lot of issues because of the war, though, like PTSD and stuff, so I became a ninja earlier than most, un. Then Onoki decided to take interest in me, and I got stronger and stuff, but because I was so close to the Kage I saw what the inner-village workings were like, un, and I think the clan chakra had a tendency to drive people insane, and you already knew about my pyromania and depression and stuff, un, and, and…"_ She trailed off and sighed.

Sasori felt the girl furl in closer to him. He let his head fall down a little, refusing to sigh as he felt his body try. "_I get it, brat_."

"_How, un?_"

He fished around for the right words for a few seconds. "_Serena and Xenophilius, they considered you their daughter. I suspect that they would have so continued even if you had revealed everything about who you once were. They loved you unconditionally, and raised you as their own. You never knew your mother, and don't remember your father, so they took those places and became that for you. You consider them your parents just as much as they do, even if you are somewhat in denial._"

"_I'm not in denial, un._" Deidara muttered into her arms, which had by this point gravitated up to rest on top of her knees.

"Deidara…" Sasori hugged her closer, as odd as it may have felt. He knew it would help, and it had to. They couldn't have Deidara running around in an unstable state of mind, not with the power she had. "Listen… _Just think about it, even for a minute. Just think of the word parents. Mother. Father. What do you think of at those words?_"

Deidara was silent and curled up closer in on herself and closer to Sasori as well. It was all the answer he needed. "See? _You consider them your parents, or at least very close to being such. It's nothing shameful to miss your mother, and you still have your father. Spend what time you can with him, and enjoy it. You were always the type to live each day as if it were your last, after all._"

Deidara sniffled, and the sniffle grew, until she was silently sobbing into Sasori's lap, clutching him like an anchor to life. And with that moment, that action, the line between "Luna" and "Deidara" was blurred even further than it had been before.

o.o.o.o.o

Ron and Ginny were the youngest Weasleys. They were expected to be close by the others. But as the youngest, they were also expected to be naïve, innocent, and behaved.

The irony of those descriptors is obvious in concerns to our darling little puppeteer. But the little girl? Ginny?

Occasionally, Ron took pleasure in the knowledge that he was the only one that was aware of his sister's habit of sneaking out in the early morning to filch Bill's old broom and practice flying around. Of course, he kept an extremely close eye on her when she did so, ready to catch her with chakra strings should she fall (he could handle her wobbling around on occasion… he was raised as a shinobi; he wasn't going to overreact… at least, that's what he told himself). He was proud of her, though, as she was now capable of sneaking around and hiding herself from the family in the early hours of the morning.

Still, the concept of a flying broomstick… there was probably a book that described the basic charms and designs somewhere in Diagon Alley. And he could improve on the aerodynamics, particularly if he brushed up on the concept with Deidara, used as she was to flying around on those clay birds of hers…

o.o.o.o.o

"We have to tell her soon, yeah." Deidara mused out loud, several months later. She was sitting next to Sasori on the rooftop again. It was extremely early in the morning, just early enough for it to be light but for people to still be asleep. "Well, not _have_ to, but it would be nice, yeah. A good idea."

"_Japanese, brat._" Sasori admonished her.

"Well?" Deidara stubbornly pressed the question.

Sasori looked away. Deidara knew what this meant, a near instinctual understanding after knowing her partner all these years. "_You don't want her to know, un?_"

Sasori shot her a venomous look, but it ended just as quickly as it started. Deidara held his gaze evenly. He sighed. "_Of course not._"

Deidara scuttled over the roof, only a foot or so, coming closer to Sasori to steal another hug. If it was possible to gain an addiction to hugs, then Deidara had done so. Sasori had taken years to get used to hugs at all, but that process had been sped up and completed over the past several months, when Deidara, oftentimes in that airy but teary state of mourning Luna, came to him for comfort. By this point, Sasori had no trouble giving and accepting hugs… at least, so long as they only came from Luna or Ginny, or occasionally his mother.

The Sandaime Kazekage had found that out the hard way.

(It was weeks before Sasori actually came back and fixed the… _problems_ he had caused.)

"_It's… she's innocent. This world is innocent, in comparison to our own._"

"_Not as much as we'd like to think, un._" Deidara muttered. "_Not everywhere is as well-off as Britain. You've reminded me of that often enough, un._"

Sasori glared at the top of her head. "_That's not what I meant, and you know it._"

Deidara huffed. "_I know, un, but…_"

"_I don't want her to know what we were. What we did. The morals here are so different from what they were back home, and…_"

"_You don't want her to think badly of you, un._" Deidara finished up for him. She pitied him. Ginny practically idolized him, and anything that changed that… Deidara didn't think he would be able to handle it if Ginny suddenly began to hate him.

"_Of course I don't_." He grumbled. "_I mean, yes, I've told her plenty of stories about our old world, but, but…_"

"_Remember what you told me about my parents?_" Deidara bit her lip. This was still a sensitive topic for her, but she had to remind him. "_She's your sister. You love her, and she loves you, and that love is unconditional. She will continue to love her even after you tell her. And you've told her so many stories about the shinobi world that imagining her brother as one will probably make her adore you even more._"

"_And when I tell her just which side I was on?_" Sasori growled, glaring at Deidara. She smiled softly, and her gaze distanced itself, as if staring past him into the sun. Sasori realized that the influence of the Lovegoods, of Luna, of Deidara, of _her_ strange, distant, possibly delusional aspect was now in plain sight.

"_That part can wait, and even then, all it will do is prove to her that you are human, not God._"

o.o.o.o.o

Ginny squealed and wrapped her arms around her older brother. "Really? Really, really, really, really, really?"

Ron was Sasori. Sasori was Ron. They were the same person. He, neither of him, either of him, whoever, whatever… _he _had not expected this reaction from Ginny. Not at all. He blinked and turned to look at the blonde girl next to him in askance.

Deidara—Luna?—stared back at him, bemused. Even she hadn't thought that it would go this well.

"Yes…"

Ginny's eyes seemed to sparkle. "My nii-san's a _ninja!_" She began hopping up and down, and clapped her hands as six-year-old girls were prone to do.

Deidara coughed, looking pointedly at the girl.

"Luna… wait, Luna-chan! _You're a ninja too?_" Ginny ran up to her and grabbed her hands, switching to the Japanese babble mid-talk. (Wait, they were ninjas! And ninjas spoke Japanese! So that's why they taught her the… _awesome!_)

Deidara nodded. "_Well, I was, but we already explained reincarnation to you. Oh, and the puppet-man that you know as Sanka? He used to be the Sandaime Kazekage…_" She offered the last bit slyly, smirking as she watched Ginny grow yet more excited. The girl probably wouldn't be able to take much more before she exploded from excitement.

Ginny bounced in place for a second before rushing into the next room of the underground workshop. "Sanka-san! Sanka-san!"

Deidara leaned against Sasori, both of them resting against a low work table, her arms crossed. "_That went better than expected_." She mused.

"_I know…_" Sasori muttered. He felt so much more relieved now that that was over. There was still some lingering dread for when they told her about being Akatsuki later—at least a few years, they decided—but he felt much better than he had before, overall.

"_You do realize that it would probably be a good idea to tell your parents about Sandaime, right?_" Deidara's tone was conversational, but there was a smirk on her face. Her head was tucked against Sasori's chest so he couldn't actually see, but he knew her too well to think otherwise.

"…_What._" Sasori pushed Deidara away from him, looking right into that pale blue… d*** it, she was doing the haze thing with her eyes again, the one that she _knew_ made him feel uncomfortable.

"_Well, you'll have to do it sometime, right? Especially if Ginny ever slips up and says something._" She reasoned, which was at odds with the dazed look on her face. From the other room, a simple melody played from the organ that Sasori had gotten around to making for the Sandaime. An apology gift, he called it.

(The Sandaime just called it a 'get out of my hair, you immature dingbat' distraction, but Sasori denied that with every fiber of his being.)

"_Stop looking at me like that._" He looked away from her. It was bad enough just seeing it, but knowing that behind the innocent, wonderland look there lurked a psychotic terrorist bomber that had been a criminal for at least ten years by now… that just made it so much _worse_.

"_So what are you going to do about telling them?_"

"_I won't tell them_." He crossed his arms and glared at the wall. Deidara just rolled her eyes and wandered away to go watch Ginny and Sanka.

Unfortunately for Sasori, boredom was a powerful thing.

o.o.o.o.o

It was a strange sense of humor, Sasori decided, that Agent Diamond had.

He stared down at the papers in his hands. They were sheet music. Clusters of paper, one after another, all in folders, and sorted even further inside with simple paper clips.

It was theme music.

For everyone in the Akatsuki.

With a note that Diamond herself was especially partial to Hidan's, Orochimaru's, and Kakuzu's, for whatever reason.

Well… there was a violin part to many of the songs… and the Orochimaru theme seemed to have a part for the organ, so at least it would do something to keep Sanka occupied…

Sasori leafed through a little more, and then reached something new. The sticky note said that it wasn't theme music, along with a rather horrific little fanged smiley face.

E. S. Posthumus  
Gogol Bordello  
Phantom of the Opera

Well, he'd heard of the last one, but who were these first two?

Another sticky note caught his eye.

_The violin parts are interesting and the music keeps you engaged (don't worry, we edited out the bad words in the Gogol stuff for Ginny's sake), and some are difficult to master, so… well, we figured we'd give Ginny a little something more interesting to practice._

The writing turned blockier, and Sasori raised an eyebrow.

"**We" did nothing. This is all on you, Di.**

_Bah, whatever._

_Buh-bye!_

_Agent Diamond/The Blood Mage_

**Jashin, God of… I don't even know anymore…**

Right… It was almost hard to take them seriously at this point.

o.o.o.o.o

Endless refrains. And he sang along, too.

Sasori couldn't even work on his puppets as much as he wanted to anymore. All he ever heard was the endless repeating of the organ and the lines.

There was no phantom (only a ghoul in the attic).

There was no opera (bar the one that Sanka seemed to hallucinate into creation).

There was no need for this travesty.

But it was there anyway.

Over.

And over.

And over again.

Let it be known that the Sandaime Kazekage was a fan of the Phantom of the Opera. A really big fan.

o.o.o.o.o

Ron was eight, and the girls were seven, when the first secret broke.

Arthur Weasley was neither a quiet man nor a loud one, but he was most certainly a genuine one. He was carefree and honest, and though he was often strapped for cash, he dealt with it as best he could. He had a loving family, and his oldest son would soon be off to work at Gringotts. His youngest son was a bit strange, but he seemed to be far more intelligent than he let on at times, and every child genius had a tendency to have a quirk or two, right? Ron also spent most of his time with his younger sister and Luna Lovegood instead of asking for male playmates his own age, but that wasn't too odd.

Arthur Weasley was also a slightly peculiar man, prone to thinking and doing strange things on occasion, particularly if they raised his hackles about his rather acute fixation on muggle culture. However, he was not so strange as to ignore a change in something he thought immutable unless he chose to change it himself, such as the status of noise in his workshop.

Music. There was music emanating from what appeared to be the floorboards, somewhat dark and dreary, one that he had heard his children sing along to on occasion. He found a door that hadn't existed in the back of his workshop before, one with strange markings on it.

Arthur knew how to check for Dark Magic. It was surprisingly common in his line of work, despite many people's claims that only Aurors had need for such skills. When no sign of any magic whatsoever, dark or otherwise, showed up on his scans, he came to the conclusion that the designs on the slightly-smaller-than-average door were _probably_ mere decorations. Of course, this didn't mean that it was certain, but he lowered his guard slightly and opened the door. He went slowly, wand held out in front of him and ready to cast a spell if need be. He prepared to find anything and everything on the other side of the door.

He found that his idea of anything and everything was sorely lacking.

"_The Pha~ntom of the Opera is the~re… inside your _mind!" This was followed by yet more minor chords on… was that an _organ?_

Arthur straightened slightly in surprise, taken aback as he was by the strange sight in front of him. The room was dark, and he could hardly see anything, barring what the single lamp from the ceiling shone down on: a man playing a large, imposing organ. He could only see the "man" from behind, and even then, he could tell that those hands were not natural from where they dodged out to the side to hit notes. Every joint was delineated harshly; every movement was accompanied by a series of clicks and clacks, those of wood colliding against more of its kind.

Arthur came up behind him, stepping as softly as he could to prevent any noise from emanating from his footsteps. He drew his wand up to the back of the man's chest, and softly whispered. "_Stupefy."_

It didn't work.

The man on the organ was gone, the music stopping harshly in the middle of a measure as a cloud of smoke dissipated from the spot (the result of something called a shadow clone, Arthur later learned). There was a soft footstep behind him, strangely muffled. Arthur spun around, hand held out straight so that his wand pointed directly at the man's heart.

Only it wasn't a man.

It was a strange creature. Humanoid, certainly, but it, he, seemed to be made of wood. Like a puppet, almost, Arthur thought.

"Whoa. Just, just _whoa_, man." The creature's hands came up, and his accent was distinctly foreign. There was an Asian shade to it, though it seemed to be tinged with both American and British as well. The words in particular seemed more suited to a teen from the other side of the world (what did they call that one muggle-heavy area… SoCal?), though his expression was, pardon the pun, _wooden_. Unmoving.

What was it?

"Now, how's about we both just kinda… lay down our weapons right 'ere or something, a'right?" The man took a step closer, but Arthur kept his wand trained on _its_ chest.

The eyes rolled. "Dude, if I wanted you dead, you _would be_ already. Seriously, man, it's like I'm not even—"

"What are you?"

The wooden man blinked at him, likely a motion done in surprise rather than necessity, and then began to chuckle. "You know, I've wondered that myself. Like, _a lot_. I _think_," He held up a hand here, "And don't get me wrong, 'cause stuff gets a little loopy sometimes, I _think_ I'm supposed to be called a human puppet. If I'm translating right."

Arthur didn't relax. "A human puppet?"

"Dude, totally!" And the grin was back in full force. It was almost infectious, and would have been, had the situation not been so serious. Arthur shifted his weight a little as he realized that the strange man was more than prepared to launch into a long, rambling explanation concerning his circumstances. "So, I'm actually from a place called the elemental nations, right? And there, there are ninja villages, and I used to be in charge of one. But then one of the guys workin' for me went a little _psy~cho~!_ And he decided to kill me. Then he did this creepy thing and replaced most of my body with wood and steel and stuff, and I was dead for a while and don't really remember what he did with me, but I'm pretty sure it was mostly just fighting. And then I woke up and saw a god and a crazy little demon chick, and they told me that they were going to put my soul into the puppet that was probably all that was left of my body, because the demon girl was bored and thought I could amuse her."

There were several seconds of silence, and then the wooden man suddenly gave him a double thumbs-up and a cheesy grin, ducking his head down between his hands and squinting his eyes in a way that Arthur just _knew_ was meant to either irritate him or draw him into some sense of unwanted camaraderie. And then the moment was gone and the man was strolling towards him, his body angled in just the right way to convey that his intent was to go to the organ, not Arthur, or at least the seat beside him.

"Stop." Arthur didn't want the man moving any further. His story was ridiculous, and Arthur really ought to call the Aurors in as soon as possible on this anomaly. An enchanted muggle puppet would have been within his jurisdiction. A possibly possessed one was not.

One eyebrow slowly came up, and the voice became a derisive drawl. "_Really…_" The puppet snorted. "Remember what I said? Sandaime Kazekage. The Third Wind-Shadow. Ruler of the Village Hidden in the Sand, Sunagakure no Sato. In other words, the most powerful man in a self-sustaining government run mostly on the power of its shinobi, of its ninja. I was the leader of a village of _trained assassins_, man!"

Arthur was sweating now; he could feel beads of the liquid starting to roll down his back. This was…

"Seriously, dude, I wasn't kidding!" The man, some sort of Wind-Shadow (was that supposed to be some kind of dark creature?), returned to his earlier joviality, and then he was suddenly next to Arthur, clapping a hand on the redheaded man's back. When had he…?!

"If I really wanted you dead, the door would have been trapped! Or, like, I would have been waiting with a knife or something, but really, man, lighten up, will ya?" He laughed again, a sound that would have been full-hearted if not for the tinny quality that it gained from his wood and metal body.

"Why are you here?" Arthur decided that it would be best to ask relevant questions while playing along.

"You mean in this basement?" The creature, man, puppet, whatever, shrugged. "No idea, it was here when I arrived. H***, it's where I _woke up_." He scratched the back of his head. "Then those kids showed up, and I had to come up with some kind of name or something, but I really hate my real name, and I can't just have them call me by my title, so I kind of just spliced something together with that and went with Sanka. Does that sound alright to you? I mean, I thought it sounded a little funky, but I'm not really all that sure about it…"

Arthur's brain rebooted. "Wait, _kids_?!"

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Lovely little cliffhanger, eh?**

**Thank you all so, so much for the reviews. I don't know what it is that I'm doing that makes this story so much more popular than my others, but I'm definitely going to keep doing it.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	6. Puppet and Sculptor (Part Three)

**A/N: So, I figured I should mention this right away: I hold contests on DA. If you draw me fanart and enter it, you could possibly win a one-shot from me (ranging from 500 word drabbles to 5k monstrosities). Seeing as most of that art is currently GC focused, I figured it would be a good idea to advertise these contests on what appears to be my most popular story. A new contest will start every month, and last for two months. So there are a lot of chances to win.**

**Also, since I had a few notifications of confusion regarding this: no, the seals did not fail accidentally. No, it wasn't Diamond's fault. Sanka took the seals down because he was tired of living in a basement, bored out of his mind, and he **_**wanted**_** to be found out.**

o.o.o.o.o

All the Weasley children had grown up with the knowledge that their mother was the dominant one when it came to handing out punishments and all other forms of child-rearing. Their parents each had their own roles to take care of and both were satisfied as they were.

That meant that seeing their father like this was rare.

"Ron. Ginny. Why did I find a living puppet playing an organ out under my workshop?"

Seeing their little brother actually look _panicked_ about something, though… that was like having their cake and eating it too.

o.o.o.o.o

This was the first sign of something _wrong_ to Molly and Arthur. This was the first sign that something was truly _strange_ about their son.

Sure, he'd always been a little odd, a little peculiar. Ravenclaw and Slytherin seemed to fit him far better than Gryffindor most of the time, though he never showed any true fears to conquer in the first place. Ron spoke strangely, almost stilted, as if he knew what he wanted to say and how to say it, but couldn't convey the social aspect at all… or simply didn't want to. Even as a very small child, he had always been playing around with marionettes and puppets.

And with Ginny… he almost never left her side, at first. It had been as though he had thought she would be taken away from him if he didn't try to protect her at every turn. Even after almost a decade, he still tried to stay near her as often as possible.

They'd been so _happy_ when he'd befriended little Luna Lovegood. The girl was possibly stranger than him, and seemed to be immutably attached to her gloves for some reason, and she was enamored with fire and explosions and the like, and so airy and dreamy all the time… but she brought Ron out of the hard shell he had around him. It was not a shell that connoted shyness (they could have dealt with that), but the air of a true loner, someone who thrived in silence and isolation. Luna had smashed into his life and then refused to leave, particularly as she decided that the two youngest Weasleys were apparently her two new best friends.

And now this.

Yes, Ron had always been strange. But he had also been quiet, he had been _good_. That he had hid the fact that there was _something_ living in the workshop, human or not, was a blow to them, as they had always been able to trust the boy before.

(Neither was aware of the irony of that belief until years later.)

Molly had tried to scold him, she had, but Ron had just nodded along and either agreed or disagreed with every point, _citing examples_ when he could, and just treated it as a debate of some sort rather than being scolded by his mother. It made it impossible to berate him when he treated it so distantly.

It didn't help matters that the… puppet they had found admitted that he had been around for far longer than they realized, and had apparently been dropped in with a large amount of woodworking tools, presumably to fix himself if something broke. He claimed he was rubbish at it and that even Ron was better at it, and had been for years.

(They realized just how the violin must have been created later that night, alone as they discussed things away from the children.)

Ron had been playing around in that strange basement for years, now, and was nearly an expert in all matter of carving, despite his young age. The instruments down there, all, were a result of him.

The clay sculptures in the back were creations of Luna's.

The printed sheet music was a gift to Ginny from the "demon girl" that the puppet had first spoken of.

Sanka was so _polite_, though. He apologized for things so soon, and he was so terribly _nice_ about it all. When they offered for him to stay for dinner so they could come to a decision about him, he even offered to do the dishes, despite not having eaten a thing (and not knowing how waterproof his body was and whether it would warp from the dishwater). There was one thing, though, that proved he wasn't quite the _perfect_ houseguest… he seemed to find a great amount of amusement in teasing Ron.

Molly decided to let it go for the time being, as a punishment for keeping it all secret for so long.

And then things just got stranger.

o.o.o.o.o

The summer after the twins came back from Hogwarts was a little… odd, to say the least. They had come back with stories, yes, and many of them were quite a bit like the ones that Bill and Charlie, and even Percy, had occasionally come back with, but they had also come back with _things_ that the others hadn't gotten until their Hogsmeade trips in third year.

"I'm telling you, we didn't get them illegally, mum!"

"Then where _did_ you get them?"

"The creepy twins."

There were several seconds of silence as Molly just stared at them. "What?"

Fred started. "There are two pairs of twins in our year."

George took over. "There's the funny twins, that's us, and—"

Fred continued. "There's the creepy twins. Byelobog and Chernobog."

"You can't just call them creepy, Fred. That's rude." Molly admonished them.

"Anyway, all you really need to know is that while we play pranks, they do other stuff, like get things that no one else can. They get stuff from Hogsmeade for everyone in the younger years, and no one's sure how they do it." Fred explained, ignoring Molly's scolding.

"Even we can't figure it out." George seemed to be rather excited. "It's also kind of funny, 'cause they're really close, even if Byelobog is in Gryffindor and Chernobog's in Slytherin. And they both seem to be pretty good friends with this weird Hufflepuff called Cedric Diggory."

"I think they're just trying to buddy up to Professor Sprout, since she's head of Hufflepuff, and the Herbology teacher. And they're Herbology geniuses, or something. Seriously, they can even get close to the Whomping Willow." Fred mused.

"_No one_ gets close to the Whomping Willow." George exclaimed.

"Except for them, Professor Sprout, and Diggory." Fred nodded.

"But Diggory's weird. Even the unicorns like him." George waved that away.

"George! Don't call the boy weird. His father works and the ministry, and is a close friend of your father's." Molly had her hands on her hips as she scolded her sons, frowning.

"So we _didn't_ steal it." Fred seemed to finish up.

"Or get it illegally."

Fred nodded. "We just pooled our allowances,"

"And got the creepy twins to do it!" George finished.

"Go to your rooms, boys." Molly sighed and sent them off.

Ron and Luna were sitting on the steps during the whole conversation, and squeezed to the sides as the twins thundered past. After the twins were gone and Mrs. Weasley had gone to the kitchen, Deidara spoke up.

"Creepy twins, yeah?"

"What are you thinking?"

"Creepy twins, different personalities but still close, and really good at Herbology, yeah?" Deidara shrugged. "Call me crazy, but that sounds a lot like Zetsu, yeah."

"You can't just make a decision based off of that." Sasori pointed out.

Deidara shrugged. "Maybe, but I still think it's likely, yeah."

o.o.o.o.o

Sanka didn't need sleep. He didn't need _much_, anyway; he was almost always awake. This meant that, even though he was known to the family now, he still had spare time at night. Yes, he could practice the piano and organ that had occupied the workshop basement for nearly a year now, but even that got boring after a while. He occasionally hinted at Sasori that he'd like something else to learn, to try, but nothing came of it.

At one point, he just cast a henge on himself and started going down to town, visiting here and there and just _talking_ to people. Small stores and cafés, even occasional tourist shops as well. He met men and women, children and the elderly, all muggle. It became a nightly trip, one that he enjoyed. Yet even that got a little boring, and he began to find little trinkets, here and there, that he wanted as his own.

He couldn't borrow money from the Weasleys; they were stretched thin enough as it was. But…

His eye caught a sign one night, by the bank. It would be easy, really. Easy and he'd be better at it than anyone else…

And so Sanka became the new night guard for the Bank of the UK in Ottery St. Catchpole.

o.o.o.o.o

"_You got a job_?" Sasori stared at him in surprise. "_Why_?"

Sanka shrugged. "_I get bored at night. There's no one to talk to, and I don't exactly have a lot to do. So I started walking around the town down there at night, and I saw some interesting things that I wanted to buy, but I have no money, so… I don't know. I guess I just figured it would be a good idea to have a source of income. Plus, I'm kind of freeloading at the moment and that makes me feel sort of guilty, so…_"

Sasori shook his head. "_Alright, I guess. What did you want to buy, anyway?_"

"A laptop. _They're pretty cool, and they look useful._" Sanka explained. "_Since I don't eat or really have any constant expenses since I'm dead, I'll have plenty of money soon. I'll be giving a bunch to your parents as rent, though. It should only take me a few weeks to get enough to buy what I want… though it'll take a LOT longer to get enough to hire someone to wire this place, so I'll only really be able to use the computer down in this one internet café._"

Sasori raised an eyebrow. "_Tell me more about these computers. How good are they compared to the ones back home?_" Oh, he'd _heard_ of laptops before, but he hadn't ever thought them to be anything beyond a slightly useless eccentricity.

So Sanka did.

Now Sasori wanted one too.

It looked like there would be a rise in the production of Scorpion Statuettes in the next few months.

o.o.o.o.o

Ron was ten, and the girls were nine, when Sanka managed to finally get enough money to buy all the supplies to get the workshop wired, and to install a wireless system. Of course, Sasori was really the one doing the wiring, but it wasn't like anyone really knew that.

This was the event that produced the first Weasley movie night.

What movie was it?

Megamind.

And the line that caught Deidara's eye, and Sanka's as well?

Well…

"_PRESENTATION!_"

o.o.o.o.o

"Please, yeah!"

"No."

"Ple~ase…"

"**No.**"

Sasori glared at the wide puppy eyes that Deidara was giving him. He ignored Sanka entirely.

"_But it would be amazing, un!_"

"_I don't care_."

"_We could look awesome when we kick a**!"_

"_We're not villains."_

He was _not_ going to just randomly _build_ an entire _orchestra_.

"Hey, Saso-chan…" Sanka started, completely ignoring Sasori's instantly and incessantly twitching eye at the nickname. "_Do you know what a Vocaloid is?_"

"_No_."

"_Take a look, and __**then**__tell me if you're still not willing to make more instruments. And puppets to play them and sing._"

Several hours later…

"Sandaime, see if you can find me a manual on programming."

Deidara and Sanka grinned at each other and high-fived behind Sasori's back as the boy himself worked on the schematics for a new puppet.

The title referred to the new puppet as a prototype for something called "SF-A2 Miki."

o.o.o.o.o

One strange aspect of this new life was that Deidara had far better control over herself. It wasn't as though many people _knew_, of course, but she did. She even had enough to hide her arguments with Sasori most of the time.

'Most of the time' was the key phrase there.

Seven years, they had hid their hushed arguments. They had even managed to avoid having one entirely in the past four months. And then, they just… snapped.

"_IT'S EPHEMERAL! IT'S FLEETING, TRANSIENT, MOMENTARY! ART ISN'T MEANT TO LAST FOREVER, UN!"_

It was a bit of a wake-up call.

Ginny stared at them as they argued. Yes, she had heard these arguments before, but never had they gotten quite this loud or angry about it.

"Hey, Ginny-chan. C'mon, let's get you away from these two." Sanka put a hand on her shoulder and led her out of the workshop, which was slowly growing in tension. The two of them ended up in the kitchen, where Sanka just gave a cheery salute to Mrs. Weasley's back, and left whistling, with his hands in his pockets, to go back to the workshop.

He entered to see a pair of young children that weren't children. Sure, they held the forms of children, but their stances, their expressions… they weren't children.

It would have been _so_ much more poignant if it weren't for the fact that they were just arguing over _art_, of all things. Sure, it was kind of important, but it wasn't _that_ big of a deal.

The Sandaime Kazekage had been young when he had been put into office, and had been young when he had been… forcibly retired. Contrary to the bad luck that plagued Konoha and Iwa, the Shodai and Nidaime Kazekage had both had rather long terms of service. So the Sandaime Kazekage was a fair bit younger than any of his counterparts in the other villages. He had taken office at the young age of twenty-three (though he heard that the Godaime had taken office at fifteen, which he applauded), and left it six years later when Sasori killed him.

He'd known Chiyo, and had actually been frequently roped into caring for chibi-Sasori back when he was a young yet well-established Jounin, not yet Kazekage. He wasn't doing it as a D-rank or for any official reason; it was just that Chiyo had a habit of twisting his arm to get him to do the work for her whenever she was too busy for it. The fact that he was prone to teasing Sasori as a child may have been the start of Sasori's dislike for him, though the fact that the teasing had continued well into Sasori's career was probably why Sasori absolutely _hated_ him as an adult. Really, the ban on the human puppets was just the straw that broke the camel's back. Sasori hadn't like him at all before then, and in hindsight, Sanka really shouldn't have been as surprised as he was when Sasori decided to assassinate him. H***, he actually kind of brought it on himself.

Though giving Sasori noogies for years on end was kind of worth it.

Sanka knocked on the doorframe, leaning against it, and sighed when he was completely and utterly ignored by the two arguing artists.

"Oi, idiots."

They didn't even blink.

Sanka sighed again and walked over to them. He put his hands out to the side and then…

*Smack!*

He clunked their heads together. Then he was forced to dodge several weapons of varying shapes and sizes as they came flying towards him in retaliation.

After several seconds of that, Sasori seemed to come to a realization. "Where's Ginny?" He demanded.

Sanka shrugged, his shoulders clicking. "She's in the kitchen."

"Why?"

The puppet grinned and leaned forward, propping up his chin with one hand. "_Well, that's a rather funny story. Remember those movies with little kids hiding because their parents were always shouting at one another?_"

On the one hand, Sasori and Deidara were intelligent enough to understand what he was implying. On the other hand, they cared a lot more about Ginny than they did about protesting Sanka's insinuations of romance.

Their eyes widened.

"Oh no." Sasori was gone in less than a second, shunshin-ing out into the open and then running the rest of the way. Deidara was barely half a second behind him, worry clouding her eyes.

Sanka shook his head and leaned back against a wall. "_I wonder how long they'll stay in denial about this?"_

"…_I give them until the hormones kick in_."

o.o.o.o.o

Luna was a strange child, to be sure, but there were also a few things she did that were surprisingly normal.

Like sing. Strange songs, usually, but she liked to sing.

Definitely not in public, though.

It was a natural step, really. Her best friend played the violin. Sanka, who was more like an eccentric uncle than anything else by this point, played the organ and piano, and had spread out to look at more percussive instruments (which organs and pianos counted as) in recent years. And Ron, or Sasori, really, created an almost disturbing number of musical puppets these days, mostly urged on by Ginny, all of which were quite reminiscent of the robots that starred in those online videos that they'd only recently gotten access to.

Those musical puppets, however, didn't have… _soul_. They were heartless, mindless. They were… well, they were _puppets_.

Any song they sang, it was lacking in emotion. It sounded flat. Sure, there were some songs where that method was fine, but there were also songs where the droid-like singing of the computer program just wasn't good enough.

Plus, she just felt a little left out. Sure, she could do special effects on occasion (a controlled explosion did wonders on the stage), but that wasn't really _enough_.

So she began to sing. Not in public, oh no, but she started to practice with her voice, in the shower, in her room. Alone, she practiced, just so she could 'get in on the action,' as it were.

"Oh, momma~, life had just begun~, and now I've gone and thrown it all~ away~…" Luna sang in the shower. It was a song that hit home, what with her past life as Deidara, but was also popular enough that her father wouldn't question her choice in singing it if he heard her.

"_You're good_."

Luna froze, and then slowly, ever-so-slowly, peeked around the curtain.

The bathroom was empty.

A wind-based ninjutsu to transfer the sound from the other side? Maybe a two-way one, where they just meant to listen, at first…

Luna shook her head. "_Who are you, un_?" She demanded.

"_Uh… can't you tell by the voice?_"

"…_Well, yes, but I'd rather have you tell me anyway, un_." She admitted.

"_Sanka. As in, crazy puppet with creepy iron sand powers and too much time on his rickety old hands_."

Lune frowned at the door, and slowly shifted her weight into a defensive stance, becoming Deidara in a moment. "_Why are you here, un_?"

"_Actually_," The voice came again. "_'Little Ron' got into a chess match with his brothers. Well, three chess matches, actually, one each against the twins and Percy, all at the same time. Apparently, they practiced while they were at Hogwarts, and wanted to test their skills against him again. I think Percy's getting a little depressed by the fact that he's being beaten by an eleven-year-old. Ginny's watching. I got bored so I came to visit you. I'll go downstairs and talk to your dad until you're done, though. Sorry._"

Then there was whistling, and footsteps, both of which grew slowly quieter as the owner left.

Well… that was one way of letting them know.

o.o.o.o.o

Sasori paced back and forth around the workshop nervously, arms behind his back. He chewed his lip, and Deidara just looked on. It was less than a month before he was due to leave for Hogwarts.

"I don't want to tell her."

"You are seriously worrying _way_ too much about this, yeah." Deidara rolled her eyes, pushing away from the table she'd been leaning against. They were speaking English at the moment, but not for any real reason anymore. "Ginny idolizes you. She's not going to care that you were Akatsuki."

"But what if she _does_? What if she feels like I betrayed her or something? We've always portrayed ourselves as the bad guys, I _always_ told her that no matter how cool Akatsuki seemed in the stories, they were still, _we_ were, still the bad guys, _always_ the bad guys." Sasori kept walking around, fingers twitching as though he was itching to work on a puppet in his anxiety.

Deidara walked up to his back and spun him around, reaching up to plant her hands on his shoulders and keep him rooted to the spot. "Danna. Sasori. Ron. Look at me. Ginny is your sister, yeah. She _will not care_. You are her brother and she loves you, and if you keep freaking out, I will _slap_ you, yeah."

"Gaki, you don't understand, I—"

*SMACK*

Sasori stood there, stunned, as a red handprint blossomed on his check. His head was facing to the side from the force of the blow, and Deidara had already gone back to standing with her hands crossed over her chest. He slowly turned back around to look at her.

"You hit me."

"You wouldn't stop panicking. It was annoying me, yeah." She frowned at him. "Just calm down. She'll still love you, yeah."

"But…"

"Sasori-no-danna. Trust me, yeah?" She pulled him into a tight hug, trying to convey as much confidence as she could through to him.

"…Fine."

Deidara pulled away and smiled up at him, and received a weak smile in return.

"Nii-tan?" Ginny, even after she'd learned the correct way to say it, continued to use the modified, "cutesy" honorific when she spoke to her brother.

Sasori turned to smile at her, but it was closer to a grimace. "Hello, imouto. Remember when we told you we were shinobi?"

Ginny nodded, frowning slightly. "And then you wouldn't tell me when you'd had time to learn it, or where Sanka came from."

Sasori took a deep breath to steady himself. "Ginny, you know all those stories I've told you about Akatsuki and the great nations?"

Ginny nodded.

"Do you believe in reincarnation?"

An hour later, the explanation was finished, and Ginny didn't love her brother any less than before. In fact, she was just glad that he trusted her enough to tell her all of this.

Deidara was right about a lot of things, far more than Sasori gave her credit for, in this life or the last one.

o.o.o.o.o

Ron sighed as his mother, once again, fussed over him on the station. King's Cross was an interesting place, and it always had been, but honestly? He was too used to it all. Luna, though, who was standing right next to him, was here for the first time, not having been close enough to his brothers to come along when they had left. However, she had managed to convince Molly, Arthur, and her own father that she wanted to come see Ron off.

He blinked in slight confusion as his mother asked what the number was, as though she didn't know already. Then he noticed Ginny excitedly volunteering the answer out of the corner of his eye, and smiled slightly as he realized that his mother had asked the question for Ginny's benefit, not her own knowledge. (1)

Luna stared at the barrier, head tilted just enough for her left eye to peek out. It narrowed as she grinned, and then glanced over at Ron and winked.

So Deidara's genjutsu-trained eye could see through the barrier, then. That was interesting, if not very useful knowledge.

"You have all your socks, Ron?" Molly fussed over him as they finally made their way onto the platform.

"Yes, mum." It had taken Molly ages to get him to call her that instead of the more formal "Mother," but she had done it.

"All your books?"

"Yes, mum." Ron resisted the urge to sigh.

"That… that paper that Mr. Sanka gave you?"

"Yes, mum, I have the scroll." At least that question was one that she hadn't had to ask every last one of the boys before. That gave her a point or two for originality, he supposed.

"Alright…" Molly sounded unsure, but pushed her hesitance away in favor of gathering her youngest son up in a tight hug and telling him to make sure he wrote.

Ron could swear that he heard Luna snickering at him.

He finally made it onto the train several minutes later, and slowly looked through the carriages, trying to find one that was free.

Well, this one only had a single person in it. And, judging by the lack of indicative color in his clothing, the boy was a first year as well. Ron had learned to expect such actions after living with his brothers for as long as he had. If a person was in a given house, they could be expected to wear a reference to their house at all times for as long as they went to Hogwarts, and in some rare and particularly immature cases, for years afterwards as well. This boy was wearing rather practical clothing, some of which had a slight air of hand-me-downs to it. Despite that, the boy looked polished, and his hair was in a style that Ron hadn't seen in quite some time… not since Akatsuki, in fact.

(Though Bill seemed to be keen on growing his hair out now that he no longer lived in the UK, no longer close enough for Molly to demand that he cut it whenever it started growing out by more than a few inches.)

Hm… he supposed this room was as good as any. As Hogwarts students seemed to traditionally find their best friends during their first train ride, according to his older brothers (not that he could honestly take them at their word for… anything, really, particularly when it came to Fred and George), finding a fellow first year was probably a good idea.

Ron knocked on the door and, without waiting for an answer, slid the door open and poked his head in, trying not to convey any disdain in his emotion.

"First year?"

o.o.o.o.o

(1) I doubt that Molly actually forgot the platform number in canon, but I also doubt that she asked just to get Harry's attention. This, though, I feel is a reasonable explanation. Ginny is ten years old and excitable, and still a little depressed about all her brothers leaving to go to school. Molly's just trying to cheer her up.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Just the twins and leaders left, and then the introduction arc (which will have taken me six months to post, sadly enough) will be over. But you got the Sandaime Kazekage like this instead of a bland series of chapters for Sasori and Deidara, and we all know that's worth it.**

**Don't forget to go check out the dA page, okay?**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**

**Regarding Selena's death:**

**Canonically, the death happened when Luna was nine; Mrs. Lovegood (her real name is unknown) died due to performing an experimental charm which backfired. But here's the thing: this Luna is **_**Deidara**_**, and has all the explosive chakra to go with that little quirk. For those first few years, the chakra **_**leaks**_**, because she doesn't have sufficient control over it. It clings to her surroundings, and, indeed, to the people around her as well. As a result, the effects of a backfiring charm (and the one that killed her can't have been the only one that ever didn't work out) are larger and more lethal due to the combustible chakra in the air. That's why Mrs. Lovegood died three years earlier than in canon.**

**(It amuses me that the only person to point this out was Ttran2323, who has never even read the Harry Potter series.)**


	7. God and Angel, Humanitarian Illusion

**A/N: Nagato, Konan, and Zetsu will all be covered at once in this chapter. Their childhoods are normal enough, and they didn't meet anyone prior to going to Hogwarts, so there isn't as much to cover. However, I do have to warn you that Kuro-Zetsu still speaks in bold. Why? Because it's d*mn cool.**

**If you need help remembering names, here's a rather morbid hint: Cherno means black in some Slavic languages. Black is associated with death. A LOT of people and creatures died after the disaster at Chernobyl. And Kuro-Zetsu is, well, a lot meaner than Shiro-Zetsu.**

**I find it hilarious when they call each other Cherno or Byelo (I originally was going to use Cher, but then I remembered there was a celebrity with that name, so I changed it), because they're pretty much calling each other "Black" and "White." It probably doesn't feel that way to you, but Serbian is a Slavic language, so it's similar enough that I find it amusing.**

**The whole drawing thing for Chernobog is a reference to Kuro-Zetsu being an offshoot of Madara, so to speak, and Madara's usage of genjutsu.**

**Also, I don't know how to write an Irish accent, so I don't bother. Bah.**

o.o.o.o.o

Cedric Diggory was the kind of boy that everyone looked at and said: That boy could be Minister one day.

And to be fair, he could, especially with the experience he had had at running a military village in his first life.

His parents adored him, and his parents' friends thought the world of him. They weren't particularly _rich,_ but they were in the higher middle class, which meant that his live was rather cushy.

It was a difference from the past.

His childhood was normal. He had a mother that stayed home and a father that worked at the Ministry. Both parents loved him, and neither one died while he was still a child. The life was as close to perfect as one could imagine.

Though that trip to France… well, at least seeing parkour there had given him an excuse to practice his shinobi acrobatics. Nothing worked wonders like pretending to be a child with a strange new obsession over some obscure "cool" thing that said child had seen on vacation.

Hogwarts was where things got strange.

o.o.o.o.o

The Haejigoku twins were strange children, prone to doing things that only made people question them.

They had no family but each other, and didn't seem to enjoy interacting with the other children. However, each other seemed to be all they needed.

The differences were easy to spot, of course. Chernobog's skin was black as pitch, darker than any natural color, even of the colors found in those of African descent. He was surly and even cursed on occasion despite his age, and had a dry, sarcastic wit that lashed out at everyone, even his own twin.

Byelobog's skin was white as paper, paler than any natural color. He was cheery and seemed to be the only one that could deal with his twin's perpetual anger, and was the one that people normally approached when they wanted to talk to the boys.

They were a set, though, and nigh-inseparable. They never talked at the same time unless it was in unison, and otherwise took turns. They did more work in the orphanage's garden than even the adults did, and made it grow into something amazing. Byelobog seemed to be the one with the green thumb, but Chernobog was the one that could take the plants and create a good meal from them. They were still both obsessed with the garden, though. And obsessed really was the right word for it.

But they were creepy. Byelobog had a tendency to croon to the plants he cared for, and Chernobog had a tendency to draw amazingly realistic depictions of strange battles between otherworldly powers. Both had had a tendency to bite as infants and toddlers, and both had a strange obsession with a pair of now rather large potted Venus Fly Traps that they had had since they came.

When it turned out that they were invited to a prestigious boarding school in Scotland, the caretakers were almost glad to hear that they only had to deal with them for two months a year, though those two months would have the best fresh vegetables. The children just didn't care.

Hogwarts was where things got strange.

(Well, strang_er_.)

o.o.o.o.o

Cho Chang was an interesting girl, one that was frequently told she would become a great beauty when she grew up, as most little girls were. She was interesting because she was speaking full sentences before she could walk, and only in Japanese. The other two languages came later, but still quickly.

Her father often left for business trips and her mother worked a lot, but she got to go to her Baa-chan's house frequently, and her sister was willing to play with her when she wanted to.

She had a _sister_. It was a new aspect to her life, as new as magic, and she loved every second of it. Sure, the 'older' girl was a bit dim at times, but she was young. She had time to grow.

Cho wasn't surprised when her sister ended up in Gryffindor. The girl could have only gone there or Hufflepuff. She was too kind for Slytherin and too… well, not _stupid_, per se, but she wasn't quite Ravenclaw material.

She was so excited to go there herself, those next three years. There were so many things to learn, and after she'd seen the enchanted cranes her Baa-chan had sent flying around the house for her amusement, she could hardly wait.

However, when she got there, she figured something out.

Hogwarts was where things got strange.

o.o.o.o.o

Cedric's first few hours on the train had been fairly normal, though he'd sat alone, and then he'd been forced to scramble out of the way as a pair of red-haired twins had run in, jabbering away about some prank or other that they had pulled on _another_ pair of twins on the train. And just like him, they were both first years.

"**You little s***s!**" Someone burst into the carriage, slamming the door open and dripping water everywhere. Cedric only caught sight of the colors, the black skin, green hair, and yellow eyes, and spoke without thinking.

"Zetsu?"

There was silence in the area beyond the still-scuffling Weasleys on the ground (for who else could they have been?), and then a nasty grin crossed the darker boy's face, and he turned back to the pair that was now standing in the middle of the carriage, confused.

"**Scram, before I eat you. I'm sure your flesh is firm and fatty enough to taste absolutely _delicious_.**" The two boys obviously didn't take him seriously, but they still left.

The last boy stepped back out into the corridor, still drenched, and shouted. "**Oi, Byelo! Get down here! I found someone… interesting…**"

"_I'm surprised you still have that tone to your voice_." Nagato commented, glad to have someone to speak to in his original language again.

Chernobog, or Kuro-Zetsu, turned to him. "**_Nasty, isn't it? It scares people off pretty easily_.**"

"_Except for the fact that your accent's thick enough to swim through_."

"**_F*** you. It's not like we chose where we wanted to be reborn_.**"

"Cherno, what did you find?" A white head with green hair popped in, and his eyes landed on the more normal figure.

Nagato, rather than answer, simply raised an eyebrow and allowed his eyes to flash into a ripple pattern that quickly faded.

Byelobog, or Shiro-Zetsu, blinked once. "Pein?"

"_You _do_ realize that you can call me Nagato now if you wish to do so, right_?"

"**_Well, yes, but that's not nearly as intimidating as calling you Pein_.**" The snark came very easily to Kuro-Zetsu, it seemed.

"_I don't mind calling you Nagato_." Shiro-Zetsu offered.

"_I suppose I'll deal with it_." Nagato smiled at them, far more at ease than they had ever seen him. "_Have you two found anyone else? I assumed that I was alone in this ordeal, given how the explanation given to me was worded_."

_"No, we haven't_." Shiro-Zetsu sounded almost apologetic, there. Kuro-Zetsu snorted.

"**_Let me guess, hoping to find a little blue-haired wench to play around with_?"**

Nagato colored at that, his face a little strange to see, as far as interesting sights went. "_While I do wish to find Konan, what you just implied was—"_

"_—more likely to happen than not?_" His tone was so _innocent_.

_"…Be very glad that you aren't working for me anymore_."

o.o.o.o.o

"Diggory, Cedric." Professor McGonagall read off of the parchment, prompting the boy in question to come up and seat himself on the stool and place the raggedy old singing hat on his head.

A singing hat. It seemed like the sort of thing that Muggles would make as a children's toy, only with animatronics instead of magic.

To the outside world, Cedric's sorting was normal and unexciting, if a little longer than most. To Cedric and the hat itself, however, it was a different story.

The second that Nagato felt even the lightest of touches against his mind, the walls slammed up. After several seconds, he once more lowered the walls, having decided to allow the intrusion for the moment, as it was likely the hat's method of sorting. It made sense, he supposed.

The hat seemed to almost _relax_ as Nagato allowed it into his head.

Then it tensed up again.

_…What are you?_

_A shinobi._ Nagato did not speak aloud. He did not hide his nature from the hat.

After all, it already knew what he could do to it should it try to tell someone.

_I suppose you aren't willing to lower your barriers a little further to allow me a look at _all_ your memories?_

Nagato frowned. _Perhaps I have simply internalized my mental walls over the years. Allow me a moment to remove what I can._

The second the walls came down, Nagato felt the hat sift through his memories of both lives. _Well?_

_Quite frankly, I don't know where to put you._ The hat admitted this fact rather blandly. _I was created for the purpose of sorting children. You are, quite obviously, not a child. Children are generally rather simple, and if they are not already heavily focused in the area of one of the houses, they have a preference based on the words of family members or, in the case of muggleborns, books and witches and wizards that they have met so far. You are not neither predisposed to any one house, nor personally interested in joining one._

Nagato would have chuckled at that, but refrained from doing so. _I see. How would you like to go about this, then?_

The hat actually chuckled, a wry, ancient laugh. _I don't know, but Sorting is what I was created for, and it is what I shall do. You are no threat to the students, so I find no harm in adding you to their number._

_Very well. Whichever house you choose, I am sure that I will find it acceptable._

The hat laughed again, dry amusement shining through. _You have no suggestions of your own?_

Nagato thought it over, and slowly relayed his thoughts on the matter. _I do not need the support of a house for my emotional and social health, the way that the children do._

The hat, to its credit, caught on quickly. _You wish for me to put you with the house that needs you, as you do not truly need the house. You wish to feel needed, to help others as you tried in your past life._

_Precisely._ Nagato hoped the suggestion was enough to speed up the process, if only slightly.

_You just made things much easier, if only by your choice of reasoning. You would do well in "_HUFFLEPUFF!" The hat shouted the end.

And so Cedric Diggory joined the house of the badgers.

Several minutes past after the abnormally long sorting, and soon a rather strange-looking boy was catching the eyes of everyone in the room.

"Haejigoku, Byelobog!"

The paper white boy waved cheerily to the whole room, yellow eyes squeezed shut by the force of his smile, though they were soon covered by the hat that dropped down on his grass-green head.

_…Should I assume that you are a former shinobi as well?_

Shiro-Zetsu blinked against the dark insides of the hat and allowed the childish tint to his thoughts to fall away. _Not really. I was never technically a shinobi, just a clone of one. I was still an S-rank criminal, but we were technically never a nukenin because politics and Hashirama-trees._

_You… your past is…_ That hat sounded almost disgusted.

_Blood and guts, I know. I almost miss the taste._

_Stop trying to unnerve me._ The hat sounded annoyed.

_Alright._ And then there was silence, of a sort. It wasn't quite possible to be silent in mind, but Shiro-Zetsu did his best to keep quiet. It was also a very cheerful silence.

_Let's just try process of elimination for you._ The hat seemed to sigh. _Well, you're certainly no Ravenclaw, and you wouldn't do well in Slytherin. You're ruthless, but not in the same way as Salazar's house prized. Which leaves Hufflepuff and Gryffindor…_

_Can I have Gryffindor?_ Shiro-Zetsu seemed almost hopeful. _I like the colors better._

_…I would honestly hate to have to deal with you any longer, so fine._

_Really?_

_Just go away and sit with the rest of _"GRYFFINDOR!"

Byelobog quite happily made his way over to the table and held up a hand to stave off questions for a second as he watched McGonagall call out the next name.

"Haejigoku, Chernobog!"

There were murmurs at the markedly different but still undeniably similar look to the second Zetsu half. Unfortunately for them, they didn't get as much of a show this time, because the second the hat touched the second head of green hair, it screamed "SLYTHERIN!"

It sounded… panicked, almost.

"I wonder when I'll be able to see my brother?" Byelobog mused.

o.o.o.o.o

First year flew by like a flash. Their Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was decent, a young American witch who was doing it in preparation for taking a similar post in her own country, and saw the year-long limit as a boon, rather than a curse.

Cedric had been sorted into Hufflepuff after a rather strange conversation with the hat, but admitted that he thought it fit him better than the others. The fact that Chernobog was sorted into Slytherin was no surprise, and even Byelobog's end in Gryffindor made sense after some pondering.

The Herbology professor, one Pomona Sprout, was terrified early one morning when she saw a pair of boys, one Gryffindor and one Slytherin, sitting under a very special tree.

The Whomping Willow.

In other words, the tree that would attempt to crush or batter anyone that came close to it.

She rushed towards them, planning on getting them away before the Willow stopped being so uncharacteristically still and decided to actually try to crush the boys.

Of course, the tree tried to attack _her_ when she came close enough, and, to her surprise, it stopped after the Gryffindor boy (Byelobog, her memory from the feast told her; she hadn't had him in class yet) reached up and pet it, apparently whispering soothing words to the tree. It shivered but held still, and later that week, Professor Sprout found that she had a new favorite student.

Chernobog didn't seem to have a specialty, and simply generalized, though he had a strange focus on Charms and Potions, and spent just as much time in the greenhouses as his twin did.

The two weren't shaken by what people told them. '_Gryffindor and Slytherin are rivals!_' they were told, but they didn't care. Whenever one Haejigoku was sighted outside his house and outside of class, the other would be either on their way or already there. Any class with both Gryffindor and Slytherin found them as the one willing pair between the houses.

They spoke strangely too. The Weasley twins had a habit of speaking in turn, but they rarely did it quite as strangely as the Haejigoku, who were also prone to speaking in unison, almost as though they could read one another's minds, though they denied it whenever asked.

Cedric was seen as a golden boy among the teachers. He was intelligent, hard-working, respectful, and friendly to the other students, no matter the house; some of the teachers applauded his ability to stay awake during the History of Magic classes, which even they couldn't keep conscious during, given the times they had audited their coworker's classes out of curiosity. There was also his interest in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and his studies in politics in the library, both of which had the teachers revising their opinions on his musings about becoming Minister one day.

He was an almost perfect mixture of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, they thought, if a little closer to the Hufflepuff side. In fact, the only thing they found truly strange was that the closest friends the boy seemed to have were the otherwise reclusive Haejigoku twins.

Then came the next year, however, and a _new_ development occurred that had the teachers' gossip circle all up in a tizzy.

Cho Chang happened.

o.o.o.o.o

The train ride to their second year was more normal, they thought at first, as all three sat in a single compartment. Then Byelobog left to go to the restroom, and came back ten minutes later with a confused and slightly harried first year, one that apparently recognized him but had no idea why she was being dragged across the train.

"_I found Konan!_" Shiro-Zetsu shouted as soon as he got through the door.

There was a short silence, and then Nagato was on his feet, grabbing the girl, woman, by the hand and pulling her into an unbelievably tender hug.

"Konan…" He knew that the chances of her recognizing him in his current state were low, so he continued with a slightly more personal moniker as he traced a thumb over her cheek. "_My angel…_"

She stiffened and then pulled back to look him in the eyes. "Nagato?"

He flashed his eyes in return, and then held the ripple pattern for her to see.

The emotions that crossed her face at that were varied, but the final result was pretty clear.

First she slapped him.

Then she grabbed him by the black and yellow tie, yanked him down, and kissed him.

"**_Just don't forget that you're genin-age, alright? Don't need people asking why there's a pair of preteens getting it on in a—"_**

The punch that broke Kuro-Zetsu's nose was a little more powerful than the already-fading slap that Nagato had gotten.

But hey, at least the angel was back, right?

Right?

As it turned out, Konan had recognized Zetsu first, and had reacted accordingly. Then he'd noticed the paper flower in her hair and dragged her away from the gaggle of fourth years (the older Chang sister and her friends, they found out later) and over to their compartment.

Of course, when Nagato left the room to also use the restroom, and change into his robes, he found himself walking into a suspiciously tall blue boy with no house colors that had definitely not been there the year before, only a minute down the hall as the boy himself came out of his own carriage room.

"Oh, sorry, I just didn't see you co—"

"_Kisame, you don't need to apologize._" Nagato reasoned that it wasn't much of a risk to assume in this case.

It wasn't.

"_…Alright, who am I talking to now?_" The grin was filled with human teeth this time, but there was still a predatory air to it.

"_Nagato. Zetsu and Konan are in another carriage."_

Kisame nodded apparently satisfied. "_I guess I'll write to Itachi about this. He was wondering when we'd run into someone else. Just let me get my things, and then I'll come with you._"

Nagato blinked for a second. "_Wait, Itachi?_"

o.o.o.o.o

Nagato was disappointed by the fact that Konan ended up in Ravenclaw, but fairly unsurprised. For all his power and strategy, and for all Yahiko's political savvy and charisma, she had always been the brains of the operation, so to speak. She'd always had the most complex techniques, the ones that required planning and control and foresight to a degree that neither Yahiko nor Nagato could ever truly understand, and had always been one to search for knowledge for knowledge's sake, not just for her goals. She had been the one to poke holes in their arguments until they were airtight, the one to search for the patterns in the seemingly random information that the spies brought back, the one to go on such infiltration missions herself.

Kisame had actually ended up in Hufflepuff, a result that _did_ surprise him. While Nagato himself had never betrayed anyone unless he felt that they had betrayed him first (as he had in Jiraiya's case, a situation that he later came to regret), Kisame had very much left Kiri of his own free will and been known for killing his comrades.

Of course, then Kisame had explained about how the former wielder of Samehada, his teacher and boss, had been selling secrets to the enemy, and how he'd killed his comrades to prevent them from being caught and interrogated, and how Tobi had promised a world without lies and…

Suffice to say, he managed to change Nagato's opinion fairly shortly.

o.o.o.o.o

Cho Chang.

The name was… decent, Nagato mused as he held her in his lap, sitting against the Whomping Willow with the rest of the Akatsuki, confident in Shiro-Zetsu's ability to soothe it and keep it from attacking.

He knew the teachers actually gossiped about them. Strange as their little motley crew was, it would have been hard to find someone that didn't have at least a _little_ something to say. With Kisame and Zetsu looking as odd as they did, and Zetsu's Gryffindor-Slytherin split, they were prone to drawing attention already, but Konan and Cedric were normal, model students in comparison. People didn't _expect_ the two sets to get along. And yet here they were, their own little group of misfits and overachievers.

Nagato blushed ever-so-slightly and held Konan just the tiniest bit closer.

It was also pretty nice that he got to have her too…

o.o.o.o.o

Charms, Konan mused, she liked. Oh, and Transfiguration as well.

They were so _complex_.

It was just like her paper techniques. Charms she could connect to the folding, the multiplying, the animation. The whole system of Charms was one that was focused on the fluidity of the world, on changing something without changing what it _was_. And the theories behind it were so undeniably _simple_ if one just looked at them long enough, that it was like an origami textbook, just following one fold after another until you suddenly realized you had a masterpiece in your hands.

And Transfiguration! Sure, they were starting out small, but there was so much potential! It was so much more complex than Charms, and in such a different manner, too. If Charms was like creating origami, then Transfiguration was like studying chakra theory. So many layers, though not as much mathematics, and a place where mistakes wouldn't create just an explosion, but change the subject into something strange and new. Konan felt it when she did Transfiguration, felt her skin longing to dry out and turn crisp, float away as sheets and recreate herself as an angel.

Transfiguration was her way towards creation, and Charms her method of folds.

o.o.o.o.o

The teachers had learned early on that some students just didn't follow the same rules as everyone else. It was not the written rules, like curfew and homework, but the natural ones that didn't apply. They didn't follow rules of _common sense._

The Haejigoku twins fell into that set. They were split along the most severe of the house lines, and apparently didn't care. Moreover, there was their strange obsession with plants, particularly on Byelobog's part, especially in concerns to the Whomping Willow. Byelobog was cheery and had a well-developed sense of humor, despite the rather strange nature of it.

The other twin, Chernobog, was simultaneously extremely rude and strangely mature, and was only ever tempered by his twin. Chernobog didn't fit the model of a normal Slytherin student. He wasn't some great hulking lug of a minor pureblood, nor was he a snobbish little scion of an ancient house or wealthy family, attempting to be as cunning as the house was purported to be. No, Chernobog didn't even know what his blood status was; he and his brother were orphans, after all. Many claimed that Chernobog's brash and abrasive personality were better suited to Gryffindor… until they saw him slide through a crowd unnoticed, or slip an insult into a supposedly polite sentence. No, he wasn't _trying_ to be cunning like the pureblooded heirs and heiresses. He already _was_ cunning. It came naturally to him, and by the smirk on his face, he knew it.

Cedric Diggory seemed normal, if a little over-achieving, at first glance. But he held a strange sort of power, the professors slowly came to notice. Not power in the magical sense, but power in the social sense. Many students didn't realize it, but the small group he had surrounded himself with, the twins, the Chang girl, and Krahsson, all looked to him as a… well, the professors weren't quite sure on that count. As a role model? As a leader? As a potential future ally in a high place? Whatever he was to them, the group occasionally seemed to circle around Diggory, whether he noticed it or not.

Cho Chang was a model Ravenclaw, spending hours upon hours squealing over new spells and theories that were years ahead in the curriculum. But… the _paper_. So much paper. Everywhere, paper. Every teacher noticed it. Any teacher that had Cho in class noticed, within the first week, this obsession of the girl's. She always had strange stationary with her, fiddled with sheets whenever she finished an assignment early (a situation that occurred quite often), showing other students how to make origami during lunch periods and free time, and asked about spells that could be used to manipulate, wouldn't you guess it, paper. The girl was obsessed, but they wrote it off as a mild eccentricity. She wasn't asking about Dark Magic or anything particularly dangerous, just… paper. There was only one thing that could really distract her once she began one of her paper-projects… and that was Diggory.

Berilo Krahsson would have, in a non-magical school, been pinned as a future marine biologist by his teachers. At Hogwarts, they were less sure of what he would become… just that whatever he was, he would be swimming. There weren't any actual rules at Hogwarts concerning the lake, as it was assumed that the temperature of the water, along with the assortment of creatures, Giant Squid included, were enough to warn kids away; the most they ever did was mess around in the shallows at the very beginning and end of the year. As far as Berilo was concerned, midwinter was a fine time to swim. So was spring. And fall. Any time, really, and seeing as there were no real rules banning him from doing so, the teachers could only ask a house-elf to watch him… or change the rules, but Hogwarts was based off of tradition, and nothing had happened to him yet, right?

That was the crux of the problem with both Berilo and the Haejigoku twins. No matter how dangerous their activities in the lake or by the Whomping Willow, neither was ever hurt. They had no idea how Berilo got through the water without irritating any of its denizens, and even less of an idea of how the Haejigoku twins were able to calm the Willow. And as far as the supposed telepathy between the twins went… ha! Good luck trying to figure that out.

But while they were all a little strange, these five, none of them were strange to the point where it couldn't be explained as another childhood eccentricity. The oddity with the Willow came close, but it still didn't show the truth of the matter.

It still didn't show the shinobi that hid beneath that childish veneer.

o.o.o.o.o

"Berilo."

The blue boy turned to see the much-lauded 'creepy' twins. Behind them, quietly conversing, were Cho and Cedric.

"Glad I found you, or that you found me, anyway." He switched effortlessly after that. "_Itachi and I got a carriage already, so if you want to sit there, you're welcome to do so._"

As they shrugged and followed, the blue man caught a glimpse of a head of familiar slicked-back hair that he'd seen many times in a previous life, and only once in this one, hurrying down along the carriages, pulling a much darker boy along behind.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: I'm sorry if this chapter seems a little repetitive. I didn't have much to cover, really, but had to stretch it out, so…**

**In any case, announcements:**

**I hold contests on dA, and you can go and enter for a chance to win a one-shot from me. Please take a look, as I enjoy seeing what you envision for my stories.**

**I'm almost finished with one of my other stories, Gender Confusion, and now there's a poll up on my profile, so you can vote on which story I start next.**

**Also, if you see any copy-cats out there (you can ignore Rebirth of Rain; I already spoke to the author, and it's fine), please inform me. If you get inspired by RaH and want to write a similar story, tell me first. I might even mention it here to give you a leg-up.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	8. Sorting

**A/N: I wasn't planning on an Author's Note for this chapter, but it's necessary, now.**

**I received a review last chapter that requested that I bash Dumbledore, informing me that it would improve the story if I did.**

**The first thing: bashing is lazy storytelling.**

**The second thing: never ask me to bash.**

**The third thing: bashing is immature and pointless.**

**Everything else is explained at the following web address. seigyoku-wolf. deviantart journal/Bashing-and-Shipping-380902288  
Of course, remove the spaces.**

**It the reviewer had logged in, I may not have decided to call them out on this, but this is an issue I've seen author's comment on in other stories, and I felt that I needed to put a stop to it ****_now_****, rather than allow the situation to possibly grow and cause me future problems.**

**Bottom line: I hate bashing, and it is one of the few things that are liable to make me ****_loathe_**** a story or writer. I will never write it, and I would very much appreciate it if you refrained from asking me to do so.**

**EDIT: There was also a second anonymous review that brought another issue to my attention. Please, please, PLEASE stop asking for me to add this character or that. I've already decided who goes when, where, and why. I have this story planned out meticulously, and it's annoying to see long reviews, get my hopes up, and then realize that it's just one long stream of begging to add in whichever character the reviewer most favors. So please, stop. I know you all want Obito, or Naruto, or Orochimaru. Maybe you'll see them. Maybe I'll write them. But maybe I won't. I know where I put them, when I put them, and why I put them there and then. A few of my friends know when, where, and why (and while I doubt they'll be telling, they can assure you in the reviews that I ****_have_**** planned it all out).**

**But begging won't do anything. All it will serve to do is annoy me, and that puts up creative blocks for me (and while I can work through them, they mean it takes me longer than it should to write a new chapter). I will still write. I will still follow my schedule. But I will end up spending more time on this story than I should, and that means I won't be able to work on my other stories as much as I'd like to.**

o.o.o.o.o

Last time: _"Uchiha." The word was low and resigned; there was a small hint of exasperated amusement as well, for some odd reason. "It appears that Deidara was right after all."_

o.o.o.o.o

"Deidara?" Itachi raised an eyebrow at Sasori's comment. "_You've met with him_?"

"_Her_." Sasori corrected, a small smirk arriving on his face at Itachi's surprised expression. "_Deidara's a girl in this life. Her name is Luna Lovegood."_

_"I… see."_ Itachi spoke slowly, attempting to digest the information. "_Did you find Tobi as well? If you and Deidara are accounted for, then he is the only one remaining_."

Sasori snorted, a noise that Itachi had never heard him make before, though eleven to twelve years were enough time to change a person significantly, he supposed. "_Had we run into Tobi, Deidara would have caused an incident large enough to land herself in_ Azkaban."

"_He would have_?" Itachi knew that Deidara and Tobi had been partnered before, but he'd never really looked into their relationship much beyond what was obvious.

"_She_." Sasori corrected again, and then leaned back, arms behind his head. "_Deidara told me that her last thoughts before blowing herself up in the first life were an apology to Tobi for taking him out with her. She'd grown to care for him, and to learn the truth later… she saw it as an enormous betrayal on his part, particularly once she learned that he had hid his Uchiha nature from her._"

Itachi nodded, mulling it over and revising his opinion of Deidara, if only slightly. "_That makes sense, I suppose."_

Sasori nodded. "_Now, if I could ask some questions as well?"_

Itachi motioned for the redheaded man to continue.

"_You mentioned the others? Who might that include?"_ Sasori set aside the marionette, a feminine model with a petite figure, and folded his hands in his lap, leaning forward in anticipation of the coming information.

"Konan, Nagato, Kisame, Hidan, Kakuzu." Itachi listed off. "_Zetsu is a pair of twins now, however."_

Sasori nodded. "_Who is Nagato?"_

"_Pein_." Itachi clarified. "_They will be arriving shortly, I believe._"

"Actually," The door slid open, revealing the slightly pointed face and slicked-back hair of one Draco Malfoy. "Kakuzu and I've been standing at the door for the past minute or so."

Sasori made a face. "…Why?"

Hidan shrugged, plopping down on a seat at random. "Because I felt like it, and 'Kuzu's too lazy to argue with me or some s***."

Itachi raised an eyebrow even as Kakuzu walked in and settled himself down next to Hidan.

"I can't really be bothered to care why he doesn't give a f***, a'right?" Hidan lounged back and rolled his eyes. "Seriously."

"Or rather, you can't be bothered to think." Kakuzu spoke smoothly, his voice cultured and slightly deeper than most boys his age already.

"Oh, shut up." Hidan's voice was higher, with a slight whine to it, seemingly not there by choice.

"Knock-knock?" A blue head popped in, grinning widely. "Hello, boys!"

"Kisame." Itachi motioned to the seat next to him with a slight smile on his face.

"Getting a little cramped, huh?" Shiro-Zetsu commented as he strolled in, his 'brother' coming in right behind.

"There are some existing enlargement spells." Konan offered as she came in. "I'm not very skilled in their use, but we could likely ask a prefect."

"My brother is the current fifth-year Gryffindor prefect." Sasori offered. "He's got a better opinion of me that he does of Fred and George, so he may be willing to help us out."

Heads turned in his direction, eyebrows rising all over.

"Your brother?" Nagato prompted.

"You would know him as Percy Weasley." Sasori explained, ignoring the frowns that crossed the faces of the older members that had encountered the boy before. "And yes, I am aware of what he acts like."

"I suppose…" Nagato glanced around the room, looking for any objections.

"I'll have to henge, since it's a Weasley, but I don't really care." Hidan shrugged, still lounging and covering more space than strictly necessary. The enmity between the Weasleys and Malfoys wasn't exactly legendary, per se, but it was well known enough that he did not have to explain himself further.

"I'll go fetch him, then." Sasori stood and slipped out of the room.

There was a short pause, a lull in the conversation, which was then broken by Kisame.

"_He seems more laidback than before_."

"_Most of us do._" Shiro-Zetsu pointed out. "_We're living in a country without a shinobi system. No child soldiers, and it's been decades since war last touched its shores."_

"_Before this devolves in another heated political debate_…" Konan's voice was soft and fairly sweet, still childish, but there was a warning in her tone, one that spoke of the many times the situation had occurred before.

The door opened at that point, and Sasori came back in and sat in his prior seat. His spot in the doorway was taken by a gangly fifth year that held a large amount of familial resemblance. The physically older boy appraised the room, eyes staying on the boy he knew as Cedric Diggory for a second, and then nodded sharply.

"I see you've already gotten started on making good connections for the future, Ronald. It's good to know that you haven't followed Fred and George's example." Percy spoke with a level of arrogance that was, to those who had not yet met him, somewhat insulting. To those who knew him, it was simply his normal demeanor.

"Right." Ron wasn't fazed, just gestured around the carriage in a way that was nearly as condescending as Percy, though the elder Weasley didn't seem to notice the insult. "If you would…?"

"Of course."

The spell was, to Percy, a mildly difficult one, but it was nothing too impressive. As a result, he was a little surprised at the intensity of the gaze that the younger of the Chang sisters kept trained on him. He knew the older of the two, as she was in both his year and house, and had heard stories of the younger one's eccentricities on occasion.

"Is something the matter, Miss Chang?" Percy asked, once he had completed the spell, slightly uncomfortable under her stare.

Cho just sat back, a small, pleasant smile on her face. "Nothing at all, Prefect Weasley."

Percy paused for a second, then nodded, and then did so again to his brother. "I'll be going, then. Corridors to patrol and such."

He left quickly, the door sliding shut silently behind his disappearing form.

"…Does your brother always sound like he's got a stick up his—"

"Shut up, please." Sasori's voice was mild and pleasant, seemingly completely unbothered by Hidan's crude comment, and he even turned to them with the sweetest, most innocent smile any of them had ever seen him wear.

It was utterly terrifying. That sort of smile did _not_ belong on Sasori's face, past, present, or future.

Most of the ride passed without incident, characterized by murmured conversations and a short time where Konan and Sasori showed their paper and wooden creations in a small show to the rest of the Akatsuki.

Then the door opened, a young girl with bushy hair standing in the opening, looking around somewhat bossily. "Excuse me, but have any of you seen a toad? Neville's lost his."

"I'm afraid we haven't." Konan answered her, shaking her head slowly. "But we'll inform you if we do. If I could ask, what's your name?"

The girl answered promptly, and even somewhat imperiously, though they could tell that it was more out of a sense of fear of not fitting in than out of true thoughts of superiority. "I am Hermione Granger. The boy next to me is Neville Longbottom. Might I ask your names as well?"

"I am Cho Chang." The young Asian girl introduced the rest of the occupants of the carriage, noticing how both Hermione and Neville tried to catch themselves and keep from staring at Berilo and the Haejigoku twins. Cho then looked at Neville, smiling kindly. "If I may suggest asking a prefect to aid you? This is the sort of situation that they are meant to aid in, after all."

"Ask for Percy Weasley." Ron suggested, his lidded gaze travelling over the girl. He quirked an eyebrow. "Muggleborn?"

"And if I am?"

Oh, a belligerent one. Though given her status, it was a bit of a given that she would be somewhat defensive.

"Nothing at all. Idle curiosity, I suppose." Ron gave her a bland smile, one that broadcast his complete and utter ambivalence to her blood status.

"Actually, it does mean something." Draco broke through. He stopped slouching and sat forward, motioning for the two to come in. "You're first year, right? And muggleborn to boot. People are going to take that at first glance and try to use that against you."

"What are you trying to say?" Hermione didn't seem happy with his words, but the expression on her face implied that she had already expected it. Neville hovered behind her, nervous and uncomfortable.

Draco smirked, his lips curling up into an expression that promised trouble. "_Crush them_. Keep your blood status hidden for as long as possible when you talk to someone. Feel them out, find their ideals. They might be pureblood bigots, and trust me when I say that I know what people like that are like; my parents fall into that category, and they expect me to be the same."

"Are you?" Had Hermione been a cat, her fur would have been slowly raising at this point, but as it was, the bushy nature of her hair did its best.

The grin that he shot back was nearly blinding. "I'm talking to you and giving you advice, aren't I? What do you think?" He laughed at that for a short moment, but grew serious again rather quickly. "I'm not going to lie, though: I'm not going to be friendly to you in public. I don't want my parents to find out I'm a 'blood traitor,'" He spat the word out without humor. "And get disowned. So if I mock you for your blood status in public, try not to take it personally."

"You think the pureblood ideology is—"

"Bullsh*t." Draco snorted at her affronted expression. "But I play along. And I know that no one in this room is going to tell. Most of the people in this room I've known for a long time, and you don't seem the type, seeing as it benefits you to keep it a secret. As for Longbottom…"

Neville seemed to shrink in on himself as eyes turned to focus on him.

"It benefits him as well." Draco shook his head, going back to his earlier speech. "Anyway, figure out how people feel about blood status first, and then decide what to do from there. If they like muggles and are fairly liberal in their views, then it doesn't really matter to tell them. If they're not… well. Best thing to do in that case is evade questioning and play to your strengths. Talk about some aspect of magic that you're good at. Maybe Quidditch, or potions, or whatever it is that you can sound like an authority on. Politics are probably your best bet, because then it sounds like you know people in the Ministry, since it's rare to find someone who cares about most policies unless they know someone that's involved."

Hermione blinked at him, her mouth just slightly open. Most of the carriage was staring at him in surprise… except Blaise, who was reading a newspaper and muttering numbers to himself.

"I… I see." Hermione stammered, and then shook her head to clear it once it was obvious that Draco was done talking. She turned to Ron again. "You said to ask for Percy Weasley, right?"

Ron nodded, face lacking in emotion, and then pointed behind him, the direction that would be the right when one first stepped out of the apartment, the way that lead to the back of the train. "The prefects' carriage is down that way. Ask an older student for directions if necessary."

"**I would avoid the Slytherins, though**." Chernobog laughed when Hermione and Neville stiffened at his voice, the tone striking some primal fear in their cores. "**I've lived in that house for two years, now, and not all of them are as willing to help as they would lead you to believe. Just felt that I should give you a fair warning.**"

"R-right." Hermione walked out quickly, just slow enough that no one would say she fled, and Neville was right behind her.

Heads turned toward Chernobog, who seemed unreasonably pleased with himself.

"_That was mean._" Byelobog pointed out.

"**_And you're surprised?_**"

The rest of the train ride passed without incident.

o.o.o.o.o

A large genin team. Or an ANBU team, even.

That was what the Houses sounded like, Itachi decided. While Kisame had talked about them in depth before, Professor McGonagall's description brought up images of the camaraderie that Konoha taught to its shinobi. Granted, it was on a much larger scale than any small shinobi team, but the concept was the same. Then again, Kisame's stories had implied that the system served to alienate the houses from one another, and that many had begun to gain less pleasing stereotypes than the ones they had originally held.

Hidan and Kakuzu had already separated from Itachi and Sasori, with Hidan claiming that it was because there were people present now that would tell his father if he went 'cavorting about' with a Weasley.

Sasori muttered something about his brothers saying that they needed to fight a troll to get Sorted, just barely loud enough to set off a chain of whispering among the terrified first years. Judging by the look on the redhead's face, this was precisely the effect he had been hoping to incite.

"How sly of you." Itachi murmured, English so as not to cause suspicion amongst the magical folk around him.

Translation: _You're going into Slytherin._

"My brothers actually did say that, and in a fair bit more detail, at that."

Translation: _Am not._

They both knew that they only wanted to be in Gryffindor due to their families, and that was probably the only thing they had going for them.

When they entered the Great Hall, it was to the condescending smirks and distantly intrigued stares of older students, all of whom were eager to get the best pick of the malleable first years. As speeches were made and names were called, the teens played their part to the letter, cheering for each new student as they came, making the first years feel welcome and, above all, tying the first of the many strings that made up house loyalty.

The shinobi doubted that the budging manipulators even realized what they were doing.

Harry watched with interest as the people he knew, even the ones he had just met, were Sorted. Hermione was first, and she seemed to be trying to take Draco's words to heart. She walked as calmly as she could, and though there was worry on her face, it wasn't written on it quite as plainly as it was on most students' faces. Harry and Ron clapped along politely as she was Sorted, not knowing enough of her and her history to guess where she might have gone.

Neville was next, and the bumbling boy did somehow enter Gryffindor as well. In contrast to Hermione just minutes earlier, Neville was obviously panicking as he made his way up, and forgot to pull the Hat off on his rush to get to the table. The laughter caused him to flush bright red, but the table didn't turn him away. It would never turn a student away.

Draco was next. Unlike most students, who had to visibly fight the urge to run and hide under the scrutiny of hundreds, he fairly _swaggered_ his way up to the table, a smirk on his face.

_You're not exactly the brightest of your compatriots, are you?_

_Tch. I already know I'm not a Ravenclaw, if that's what you're saying._ Despite the fact that his eyes were hidden, Hidan rolled them anyway. _And just because I'm not conventionally smart doesn't mean I don't have things that I _am_ good at. Like languages. And theology._

_And yet I still would never put you in Ravenclaw._

_F*ck you._

The Hat seemed to get tired of it all at this point, and decided to just get it all over with. Through a quick process of elimination, it came to the conclusion of—

"SLYTHERIN!"

As befitting a Malfoy.

The fateful name came just a few spots down the list. McGonagall herself seemed to realize what she was incurring when she spoke the name, when she said those two simple words: "Potter, Harry!"

Harry walked forward slowly, calmly, and allowed no fear or apprehension to cross his face. He felt none anyway, but to show even false anxiety was to invite the doubts of the populace.

_Oh? Another one of you shinobi. Mind letting the walls on your mind down?_

Itachi, no longer Harry, lowered the shields that his mind carried naturally by this point.

_Well?_

The Hat seemed to laugh. _I can see that you want Gryffindor, but you're too evenly spread for that. I could probably put you in any house, but it would really be for the best if I put more thought into this than I am used to._

_Not Slytherin, please._ Such a simple request, and one that the Hat was only too happy to fulfill.

The Hat would have nodded, had it had the capability to do so. _Tired of the life you lead as a shinobi, I see. No more backstabbing and the like. Just as well, I suppose. You may have the cunning and such, but your ambition, in the sense that Slytherin takes it, is… lacking._

Itachi agreed silently.

_Now… do you want me to take your previous life into account? I can tell that you want to leave your old life behind, turn over a new leaf, so to speak, but you also cling to some of those memories. The loyalty you showed to your village would make for a good Hufflepuff._

Itachi frowned mentally, though his face, to the outside world, remained surprisingly clear. _You already know my preferences._

_Yes, I do_. The Hat seemed unusually resigned. _Honestly, you would fit better in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff, given your prodigious nature, and given the loyalty you displayed in your past life._

_But?_ Itachi could sense that there was more.

_But you would be happier in Gryffindor._ The Hat admitted.

_Ah. So…_

The Hat sighed, and then yelled loudly enough that even Itachi, with his many years of surprises and loud noises, was taken aback. "GRYFFINDOR!"

The applause from the table below the red and gold banners was nearly deafening as Harry made his way down. They were obviously happy to have gotten the famous boy, though he ignored the cheering as best he could and took a seat next to Byelobog… who was, for whatever reason, sitting next to the Weasley twins.

"Surprised?" Harry asked, upon seeing the expression on the paper-white boy's face.

Byelobog grinned, mirth dancing in his eyes. "I really shouldn't be."

It was a while before the next relevant name was called, the name of one Ronald Weasley.

The Hat drooped down, and then sighed audibly in his ear.

_Another one? I'll ask the same as I would for all your compatriots; please remove your mental shields for the time being._

_Of course._

There was silence for several seconds as the Hat scanned over more information than it did with most students, and sighed at the end.

_You want to go into Gryffindor._

_Yes._ Sasori knew what was coming.

_You would really be better off in Ravenclaw or Slytherin._

Sasori knew enough of the Hat's purpose to know what it wanted, though he couldn't resist teasing it a little.

_Not Hufflepuff?_

_Don't be ridiculous._

Sasori couldn't quite help the slight smile that curled over his lips, though he dropped it quite quickly in favor of returning to his planned argument.

_Your job is not only to Sort students where they go, but also where they would be happiest and most well-cared for._

_You are not a child to be coddled._

_Am I?_

There was silence for several seconds, broken by the Hat's raw chuckles. _You're not exactly convincing me that you are not Slytherin material, you know._

_I know._ Sasori spoke simply, and then continued anyway. _But I also know that I'm right, and I know that if nothing else, I can say this:_

_Would a man without bravery be willing to turn himself into a puppet? Moreover, willingly self-castrate without any painkillers other than a slight local anesthetic?_

Painkillers would have made him too woozy to do the procedure, after all.

There was a pause. _You are rather… adamant about this._

_Am I wrong?_

_…No, no you are not. And given that I _am_ meant to Sort children where they will thrive best…_

_I am not a child._

_No._ The hat agreed, sounding rather sad. _No, and it has been far too long since you were._

_So?_ Sasori was aware that he sounded rather petulant, but couldn't quite bring himself to care. _Where do you put me, oh mighty Sorting Hat?_

_You get your wish. You go to _"GRYFFINDOR!"

The first thing Ron did upon sitting down at the Gryffindor table, right next to Harry, was smirk at Fred and George and say a line that he had been hoping to use for ages.

"I told you so."

Almost immediately after, Blaise was called to the stage.

_And another._ The hat sighed. _Shields down, please._

After several seconds of searching, the Hat seemed to balk in horror. _You think this life is your chance at redemption, and yet you already killed two men?_

_They deserved it. _Kakuzu tried to sound nonchalant, but this subject, and in his mind at that… the words came out much fiercer and angrier than intended.

The Hat didn't comment, simply continued to make its decision, thankful that this particular 'subject' wasn't going to argue against the house best suited for him.

_Ravenclaw is a close second, but you would fit best in_ "SLYTHERIN!"

Blaise sat down between Chernobog and Draco, ignoring the light jibes that came from both, and focused on Dumbledore.

The mention of the Forbidden Forest had the newest shinobi occupants looking around at one another and their supposedly older compatriots, trying to decide who would go and see the viability of the possible training grounds first, or whether they had even been explored yet. The two Zetsu halves assured them, quietly, that the Forest had been explored already, but that they stayed out due to not wanting to incite the anger of some of the residents.

The mention of the third floor corridor, however, had all the shinobi looking at one another in askance. This had not occurred before, they assured on another. This development was… unprecedented.

They would decide on what to do soon.

Percy, the prefect that they had already interacted with several times, was the one to lead Gryffindor table up to its dormitories. He was slightly pompous, yes, but he seemed to mean well.

"You _did_ ask him for help with your toad problem, right?" Ron asked Hermione and Neville, his intrigued look appearing slightly uncaring due to his perpetually half-closed eyes.

"Er… yes. We did. He seemed pretty eager to do his prefect duties, actually." Hermione explained. She started off rather hesitant, but seemed to gain momentum in even that short sentence.

Ron nodded, satisfied, and then decided that the girl deserved at least a little warning. "A word to the wise: Percy may be a reasonable authority figure, but not all my siblings are quite so kind. Keep your head down around Fred and George."

"Who?"

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: A little shorter than normal, I suppose, but it's actually moving the plot along somewhat, as opposed to just backstory like the introductory chapters.**

**If you were wondering about Sanka (likely), Sasori's keeping him a secret for now.**

**If you were wondering about Diamond and Jashin (unlikely), they won't be showing up much anymore. Maybe once every dozen chapters, if that. And they'll rarely get involved beyond Peeves-like tricks (Diamond, on occasion) and keeping Hidan alive (Jashin, permanently).**

**If you were wondering about a character that hasn't shown up yet, I'm not even going to bother.**

**A lot of you are probably wondering about my House choices, and if you ****_really_**** want to argue, I guess you can, but the Hat did most of my explaining for me. Personality-wise, Itachi/Harry and Sasori/Ron probably would have fit better into Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff/Slytherin than in Gryffindor, but part of the Hat's job is to put students where they most belong… and that includes making sure that they're ****_happy_**** where they are. You could put the most Hufflepuff kid ever into their perfect House, but it means nothing if they're miserable there.**

**And yes, characters ARE going to slowly get more involved, but for now… well, you see how it is.**

**Don't forget about the contest and the poll.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	9. Alliance

**A/N: Is it just me, or are there suddenly more Akatsuki-Harry Potter reincarnation fics on the site? It's not a huge amount, and I know I can't take full credit (I'm certainly not the first to come up with the idea), nor are many of them similar in execution, but… it's still a little strange. Did I up the popularity of the "genre," or am I just getting full of myself and seeing patterns that aren't actually there? I know at least one was inspired by me, and I've seen one or two others (and Hidan always ends up as Draco, though that's for obvious reasons), but…**

**But… if you **_**have**_** started a story due to RaH, whether to fix problems that you see with it or simply due to enjoying the idea and wanting to see it done in a different light (two stories can be very similar in premise, but be drastically different in execution, and both be well-done, especially if the genres are different), then please tell me. I'd love to read them. The whole reason I started this story was because I couldn't find many of this type that were done well, after all. I want to see the new ones that pop up!**

o.o.o.o.o

Luna blinked and turned to look at Ginny, who had just squealed as she read a letter, presumably from Ron.

The two girls had managed to talk their way into having a sleepover at the Weasley house, ostensibly for the sake of Ginny not feeling alone now that Ron was gone. Sure, it had taken some wheedling, but they had done it, and now they were lying on the floor of the youngest Weasley's bedroom, talking and even _giggling_ like little schoolgirls.

Luna had learned to stop caring quite a while ago when it came to such things. Sure, she might've been disgusted with herself for being so utterly girly back in the old life, back as the S-rank criminal Bakuhatsu no Deidara, but now… well, she _was_ a little girl.

(That wasn't to say that Deidara had had issues with women or girls back then, or even with acting feminine on occasion. The issue was in acting _girly_, not in acting like a girl.)

"What did he write, yeah?" Luna shifted over, trying to get a good look at the paper.

"He met Harry Potter on the train!" Ginny kicked her feet excitedly, reading some more. Luna made a face. She thought they'd gotten Ginny more level-headed about the Potter boy, but it seemed that there was still some work to do. Luna studied Ginny carefully, scooting closer as the redheaded girl's face froze, and grew mildly confused.

"What's up, yeah?"

"He's like you." Ginny said, and then just gave Luna the paper. "He's not… he _wasn't_ Harry, not at first."

Luna froze, and then her demeanor shifted, no longer dreamy and somewhat childish. She was suddenly all business, suddenly _Deidara_. She took the paper, scanning it, and her hands clenched into fists as she saw that the lauded Harry Potter was _Itachi_. Deidara took a deep breath and forced herself to keep reading, hazy blue eyes growing clearer and narrowing the further she read. She hissed out a breath once she reached the end, her eyes closing as her head fell forward onto her pillow, narrowly avoiding the letter.

"Luna?"

"Of all the… well, at least Tobi's not there, yeah…" Deidara sighed, propping her head back up on her hand to read over the letter again. So she'd been right about the creepy twins being Zetsu, and it seemed like nearly everyone else (barring Tobi, or whoever he was, thankfully) was already there. Still, she had so much lingering anger at Itachi. Sasori had helped her work through a lot of it, and she'd calmed down plenty, but she still wanted some small revenge. She didn't want him dead, or even seriously maimed, but _something._

"…I'm going to break his nose, yeah." Deidara decided, out loud, right then and there.

"What?!" Ginny squeaked, trying hard to keep her voice down so that her mother didn't hear. "Whose nose are you breaking?!"

"Itachi's." Deidara answered, completely nonchalant, and then stretched and pulled down a pen and paper (she didn't particularly enjoy quills, and scrolls were just annoying), and began to write, giving herself a note in the back of her mind that she should warn Sanka as soon as possible.

_Hey, Sasori-danna!_

_So, first thing's first: tell Itachi that I'm going to break his nose the first time I see him again. I'll let everything go after that, but only if he just lets me punch him and break his nose, yeah? Someone that can heal it in seconds will probably be nearby anyway, so it's not like it'll do much damage, but… just let me have my moment of catharsis or whatever, yeah?_

_Anyway, Ginny's totally excited about the fact that you've met Harry Potter, so I'll try to get her to realize that he's not an option now that we know who and what he is, just so you know. She's probably reading over my shoulder, but…_

And so the night wore on. The letter didn't get sent for several days, however, as Errol was… not in the best of shapes, and the school owl was gone within seconds of delivering Ron's original missive.

They didn't trust Sanka not to add his own little message, or change theirs.

o.o.o.o.o

The first day of classes started the morning after they arrived, a Friday, which meant that their first class was double Potions. Draco Malfoy, to his peers, didn't seem particularly bothered with the class, but he was not boasting about his own proficiency in the subject, as many expected him to. He seemed somewhat excited, but not nervous, as so many other students were. Blaise Zabini, often found near him reading some old book or reading the business section of various newspapers from across the globe, didn't seem like he cared at all.

Harry Potter seemed calm, though that could likely be attributed to his muggle upbringing, many whispered, and Ronald Weasley… Ronald Weasley would have gone completely unnoticed had it not been for one small and very strange quirk.

He was excited.

First years, upon being told about their teacher, were expected to be terrified, or if they were in Slytherin, to be nervous but fairly smug, secure in the idea that they would at least get through without a detention, losing points, or failing completely.

A non-Slytherin was not expected to speak at length about the wonders of potions. A Gryffindor was not expected to read the Potions textbook with a strange grin, eyes wide and fervent. A Weasley was not expected to look forward to classes with Snape. Even Percy wasn't all that fond of the class and the teacher.

But Ronald Weasley was not normal, and he didn't follow people's expectations unless he felt like it.

Of the four, three were as they appeared, and the fourth was quietly, calmly, smoothly… panicking.

Itachi was a prodigy in _most_ aspects of shinobi life. He had never, for instance, studied medical techniques, or infiltration. That was mostly due to the fact that, no matter how good he was at identifying and memorizing poisons and antidotes, he was… _subpar_ in the art of creating and developing, or even mixing them, to put it kindly.

And he had no illusions, not even his own monstrous genjutsu, that potions would be any easier. He would pass, to be sure, and his knowledge of the theory would work well, but he would most certainly not be anywhere near the top when it came to the practical aspect of the course.

o.o.o.o.o

Severus was mildly amused by the sight before him. Mildly.

He had heard rumors, mostly from the Weasleys he had dealt with 'til now, that their youngest brother was a strange one, stranger in the family than even Percy Weasley had been labeled. Seeing the strange glint in the boy's eye and the well-thumbed but obviously new textbook in front of him (for Severus had personally seen every Weasley before him write their own name, and then their notes, in the front cover and margins of their books, year after year), Severus was inclined to believe those rumors.

He could also see Harry Potter, seated directly next to the Weasley boy, wearing a placid look that betrayed no fear or excitement, but simply serene and somewhat amiable intrigue. This was in direct contrast to the Longbottom boy seated at the next desk over next to a Gryffindor girl, who seemed scared to death as the girl, Granger, attempted to placate him. Standing out from them all, however, were Blaise Zabini, who was reading a newspaper from Australia, and Draco Malfoy, who was leaning back and balancing on two legs of his chair, smirking and talking to Theodore Nott behind him.

Severus shook his head, knowing that his best course of action was the same as it always was: to terrify the students into following his orders well enough to avoid accidentally killing themselves out of sheer ignorance and lack of common sense. He swept into the room, robes and cloak billowing behind him in what he knew very well seemed to be imitation of a bat. Upon reaching his desk, Severus turned and eyed the room at large, fixing his glare on Draco just long enough for the boy to catch his meaning and bring his chair back down to four legs, and Potter, who stared back with no animosity whatsoever.

If anything, Longbottom seemed even more terrified, now, Zabini more annoyed, and Weasley and Granger _both_ seemed still more excited than they had.

His eyes swept over the room again, assuring that he had the attention of every last student in the room. Finally, he begins to speak, his voice commanding attention whether he raises it or not… and at the moment, he is quite certain that he will stay with not. "There will be no foolish wand-waving or silly incantations in this class. As such, I don't expect many of you to appreciate the subtle science and exact art that is potion-making. However, for those select few... Who possess, the predisposition... I can teach you how to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses. I can tell you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stopper in death."

It was almost disturbing, he thought with a certain amount of detachment, how his words seemed to excite the Weasley boy. The redhead's knuckle's were almost white from how strongly he was gripping the desk. Then again, Longbottom was similar…

Severus whirled on Potter, his eyes boring into the young boy's. "Potter. Tell me, what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Granger's hand shot up into the air almost immediately, though Severus ignored her. He frowned imperceptibly as the Potter boy closed his eyes and raised a hand in a silent request for time, and looked around the rest of the room. Most of them seemed confused, and he sneered at the thought that they had not thought to glance through their books yet. Granger obviously knew, and so did Weasley, judging by his smug and somewhat impatient expression; he couldn't quite tell with Draco, other than that the boy looked bored.

"Page 424 of Magical Drafts and Potions." Potter's voice cut through, calm and clinical. Severus's gaze cut back to him, noticing that the boy's eyes were still closed. "Powdered root of asphodel and wormwood infusion are the two main ingredients of the Draught of Living Death, the most powerful of sleep potions, capable of causing a person to slip into a state of sleep so deep that it mimics death."

Potter opened his eyes up, and stared at Snape, confident that he had gotten it right. The rest of the room was staring at him in mild incredulity that he could remember something as specific as the page number, though the Granger girl's expression was more interested, as though she was seeing him at the level of an equal.

"And tell me…" Snape continued, interested now, "Where would you look if I told you to search for a bezoar?"

The boy blinked, and replied after several seconds of thought. "In the stomach of a goat, sir."

"And…" Severus's opinion was slightly higher of the boy now, as he was displaying some modicum of knowledge, though whether he had his mother's talent in the art of potion-making remained to be seen. "What… is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

Potter thought it over for several seconds, just as he had the first two questions. "They are the same plant."

"Tell me, Mr. Potter, how is it that you have managed to memorize even the page number for your first answer." Much as he wished to hate the boy, there was some element of curiosity in Severus's mind as to how he had remembered all of that information so soon after getting his books.

"I have an eidetic memory, sir." Potter admitted, his expression unflickering.

A smile curled over Severus's features, though he was well aware of the fact that it seemed cruel and condescending to the students, as well it should. "Well, well, it seems that you haven't quite succumbed to the inanity of fame, yet, Potter, though it is only a matter of time."

His eyes traced over the room once more. "As Potter said, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat, and it will save you from most poisons, a point that Potter failed to mention. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, while he was correct in that they are the same plant, he did not say that it also goes by the name of aconite." Severus glared across the room once more. "Well? Why aren't you writing this down?"

He folded his arms and watched the students scramble for their quills and parchments, ignoring the shining, delighted eyes of the youngest Weasley boy and the Granger girl nearby.

This promised to be an interesting year.

o.o.o.o.o

It was after the first day of classes that Sasori had insisted on dragging all of the Akatsuki down to the Whomping Willow.

While they had all certainly _planned_ on meeting up at the Willow at some point, Sasori had urged them to do it as soon as possible for whatever reason. He seemed quite anxious, Itachi thought with mild amusement, and he kept shifting his grip on a scroll in his hands, one that seemed decently worn, with red on the ends.

"You still haven't told anyone what's in that scroll." Itachi mused aloud, keeping one eye on Sasori for the redheaded boy's reaction.

"It's… complicated." Sasori muttered, walking quickly towards the Willow, where they could already discern the lounging forms of Zetsu's halves, and the more upright form of Kakuzu, leaning against the Willow itself. Surprisingly, even Hidan was there, assuring them that he could talk his way out of this when his parents asked him why he'd been hanging around with blood traitors.

They sat down next to the Slytherins and Shiro-Zetsu, waiting for the others to arrive. Nagato had likely decided to wait by the stares for Konan, and Kisame probably offered to wait with him for a while. Itachi didn't mind the wait, taking a chance to close his eyes and just revel in the feeling of being outside. Surrey was a suburb, one that Itachi rarely left for long, and almost always to other urban areas of the United Kingdom. It had been a long time since he had been to the countryside, and the clean air and wide open spaces were a welcome change from the suffocating nature of Privet Drive.

Sasori continued to fidget with the scroll in his hands, visibly agitated. Itachi remembered that the puppeteer had often complained about punctuality before, and was impatient to a flaw. Though the scroll obviously had something to do with his less-than-calm demeanor at the moment, the fact that not everyone was there yet was likely affecting his attitude.

"Finally." Sasori muttered, eyes trained on the remaining members of Akatsuki as they exited the main doors to the school and headed for the Willow, talking quietly amongst themselves, though Kisame broke the flow of the conversation to wave cheerily at them halfway down. Itachi raised a hand in greeting back, if not quite so enthusiastically, and smiled inwardly at the impatient staccato of Sasori's fingers drumming on the ends of the scroll.

Hidan smirked at Konan and gave her a saucy wink as the group of three approached, along with a grin that would possibly become something fairly charming several years down the road. "Why, hello there, Angel. Did it—"

"Don't." She fixed him with an exasperated look from below her straight bangs. "I've heard them all before. There isn't a single angel-based pick-up line you could possibly use that I haven't been the subject of at one point or another."

Hidan pouted, though mockingly, fully aware that the exchange was nothing but a game. "Alright…"

Sasori shook his head. "_Can we just move on, now?_"

Nagato nodded, sitting down on the grass and pulling his hair out of his eyes. "_I see no problem with doing so. I must admit to being fairly intrigued as to why you were so insistent on seeing us all as soon as possible._"

Sasori nodded, and opened the scroll. "_I can't say any sort of warning that would prepare you for this, so just… don't be surprised._"

He put his hand down on the scroll, pumping in chakra. He was lucky that he didn't need blood to summon things, other than actual animal summons, which he never had, nor would likely ever have. The scars on his thumbs from the blood-letting would have been quite difficult to explain to his parents.

There was a puff of smoke, one that had them all discreetly reach for one weapon or another, but it dispersed quickly, revealing…

"_Aw, so you finally felt like summoning me? How sweet, Sasori-kun!"_ Sanka laughed, clapping his hands in a manner that was half genuinely delighted, and half condescending.

Sasori sighed, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose, reinforcing his plans to learn a fire charm as soon as possible. "_Akatsuki, meet the Sandaime Kazekage, or as he prefers to be called, Sanka._"

The puppet-man bowed, grinning widely. "_The pleasure is all mine, lady and gentlemen._"

There was silence for several seconds, and then Hidan fell back, roaring with laughter. This seemed to bring the rest out of their surprised stupor, and they all turned to Sasori.

"…_It wasn't my idea._" Sasori grumbled, glaring at the Sandaime out of the corner of his eye.

It was at this point that Kakuzu decided to start questioning Sanka on just what he could do that could help make money.

The group relaxed, easing into various conversations, an atmosphere that spoke of their hopes for a similar dynamic in the years to come.

…Silly shinobi.

o.o.o.o.o

None of the professors had been truly surprised to find that Harry Potter had joined Diggory's group, nor were many of them more than mildly intrigued by the fact that Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini had joined as well. Snape had not exactly regaled them with stories of his godson (a situation that was partly an accident and partly a ridiculous setup by Narcissa), and by extension, ones about Zabini as well. Harry Potter, they didn't _need_ to hear much beyond what everyone already knew. These stories were ones that had given them certain expectations, and they were not astounded in the slightest when those expectations were fulfilled.

Potter was a hero, a high-profile celebrity that would likely have high connections everywhere soon, an in for anything and everything that anyone in the group could want later in life. He was calm, cool, and collected at all the times that the teachers had seen him so far, and he was intelligent, near frighteningly so.

Malfoy was the scion to one of the oldest and most powerful pureblood families left in existence, had enormous political power, and his lineage had not fallen into disgrace like the families whose association with Voldemort had been revealed for the world to see, dirty laundry aired as publicly as possible. No, Malfoy was a good contact to make, one of the ones that made more sense than any of the other friends that Diggory had so far collected, as far as practicality went.

Zabini was in a similar position to Malfoy, with the key difference that his family's power came not from prestige, age, and name… but from lots and _lots_ of money. The boy himself didn't seem to be particularly talented in any given area yet, but Snape assured them that Zabini excelled in Arithmancy and would likely be the type to dissect spells on sight, or would otherwise create a monopoly over some part of the wizarding community.

The strange addition, they all agreed, was Weasley. Oh, they realized soon enough how intelligent the boy was (and Flitwick mourned the loss that Ravenclaw had suffered upon the boy's exclusion), but he, unlike the other inclusions of that year, had little to back him up. His name was weak, his family poor, and his political power nonexistent. Compared to Potter, Malfoy, and Zabini, he made almost no sense whatsoever beyond his intelligence.

Then they all remembered that Diggory had seen fit to include the Haejigoku twins and Krahsson as well, and decided that, perhaps, Weasley wasn't such a strange inclusion after all.

o.o.o.o.o

Draco stared down at the paper in his hands, fiddling with a quill as he tried to figure out how to word this. He knew his excuse, but how to put it?

"Would you just stop dawdling and write?" Blaise's annoyed voice drifted over. "Some of us are trying to sleep."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, don't get your knickers in a twist."

He frowned again. He wanted to keep hanging out with the rest of them, but he knew that there would be attention drawn to the fact that he had no way of knowing the purity of the Haejigoku twins' and Berilo's blood, and he was pretty sure that they'd eventually invite some _real_ students, normal ones, to join them, and there was a high chance that at least one of them would be a muggleborn. Moreover, Ronald was a Weasley, a blood-traitor. Father would never approve unless he had a very, _very_ good reason for continuing to hang out with them.

The excuse came easily. He pulled it off with some small questions to various teachers after claiming to have heard some rumors about Cedric. As a Slytherin, and a well-connected one at that, he was expected to scope out allies early, and to know whom to keep and whom to let go as he grew older. Luckily for him, almost every teacher he talked to had said that they thought the rumor about Diggory becoming Minister once he graduated, or at least a department head, held some water. They could never be sure, of course, especially as the boy was only thirteen, but they supported the idea that he very well _could_ manage it.

And that was what he considered the best part. Diggory, the teachers suggested, was probably the likeliest student in school to become Minister somehow, with Percy Weasley as a surprisingly close second. The fact that he was building connections to possible future Ministers and department heads, paired with the fact that he was forming an alliance with Harry Potter despite a difference in houses, was enough to get Lucius to approve.

At least… it was enough for now.

o.o.o.o.o

"Konan."

The Asian girl (the only one in Akatsuki to retain the eye shape that so many had carried in the Elemental nations, as a matter of fact) looked up into the blue eyes of Ronald Weasley… or Sasori, rather.

"_What do you need?"_ She set aside her book, lacing her hands on the table in front of her as Sasori pulled up a chair to sit down as well. The library was quiet, given that they were only a few days into the school year by now, but they were accomplished at speaking without much noise, given their history.

"_I wanted to run a suggestion by you._" He continued upon noticing her mildly confused expression. "_I chose you because you are both close to Nagato, as he is the one that is… 'calling the shots,' as it were, and because you are the one most likely to support the idea_."

Konan nodded, motioning for him to continue.

"_I want to create some teams. At least one._"

She blinked. Then she blinked again. "_I don't follow._"

Sasori sent her a bland look, derisive. "_I told you that Deidara and I gave my sister a modicum of training, correct?"_

Konan nodded, understanding what he was implying near instantaneously. "_I… I see._"

He noticed her reluctance, and pressed on. "_We both heard what Itachi said he'd been told, that Voldemort's not dead, and given the state of our Defense teacher, these kids are liable to die at any time, since the Wizarding World is…_" He paused, unsure of how to word it.

"_Not exactly the friendliest of places?"_ Konan suggested lightly. "_I can see your point, but—"_

Sasori held up a hand. _"Not a lot of teams, and we wouldn't train them in the nastier things that we had to deal with, but… things like self-defense, and reading people. Things that can help them survive once things spiral out of control again, and you _know _they will._"

Konan eyed him strangely for a second, and then nodded slowly. "_I think I can see where you're coming from. I'll agree to take your side in convincing Nagato about it under one condition._"

Sasori stared at her warily. "_What?"_

"_You have to tell your brothers_."

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: It's a few hours late, I know. I'm sorry. Forgive me?**

**A lot of you seem to be making assumptions about how I'm going to write some part or other, about how I'm going to write various characters and aspects. And I just want you all to know that, when it comes to characterization, I'm a bit of an idealist (as evidenced by the fact that I'm making Akatsuki good…ish). I'm also extremely prone to writing in a lot of foreshadowing, so be on the lookout for anything and everything.**

**Also, a friend of mine wrote a side-story for RaH, featuring Kisame, so go look that up. The story is ****Something to Abate the Boredom****, by ****Leviticus Wilkes****, so go check it out, yeah?**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


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